Let is Snow... Please

Winter is Never Coming

There is a small patch of snow in my driveway that I pass every morning. I am aware of this because I have slipped on it at least twice, (usually accompanied by an absurd amount of creative cursing.) However, I passed that patch this morning to find (with some regret) that it was melting. For those of you not from my neck of the woods, we had a few days of cold wintery snow that resulted in a few inches of the white stuff, just in time for Christmas, but now a heat waves has set in. Snow has turned to rain, winter jackets have turned to shorts, and last night I debated opening a window up while I slept, because it was that hot and uncomfortable. It hit a balmy sixty-five degrees.

We are a week away from Christmas and we are getting weather that I would usually be thankful for come April. In December, I am not thankful for it at all, because to me (more than any Mayan Prophecy or History Channel Special) this is a sign that our world is changing and we could be in for some big problems over the next few decades. There is almost no doubt that global warming is a "thing." In July, a piece of Antarctica the size of New York City broke off the frozen continent and is now drifting into open water. It is expected to clog shipping lanes, (something no one wants this busy holiday season.) More than the inconvenience it poses, it is also a sign of the time. Think of it this way, that piece of ice has been connected to that continent before Rome was a glimmer in the eye of Aeneas. The world is getting warmer, and if you doubt me you should know that the record high, of sixty-five degrees, only beat out the record high, of sixty-two degrees, from way back in 2011, which in turn only tied the record high set in 1923. I would not be surprised is we continue to see more record highs in the coming years, and basically that is what it boils down to.

Opponents of global warning like to point out that abnormal highs and lows are common throughout history, and that is true. However, if you look at the trends, though record lows still exist they are being overshadowed by the record highs. So in the past, where they would more or less balance each other out (2 record cold days and 2 record hot days,) now there is an increasing imbalance (2 record cold days and 4 record hot days.) It's like the imbalance in the Force that the whiney kid was supposed to fix, (and I will never understand why Qui-Gon thought it was important to bring balance to the Force when the Lightside was clearly winning. He should have left Anakin on Tatoonie.)

And speaking of desert planets, Earth's global average surface temperature rose 0.6 to 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1 to 1.6° F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last fifty years. More and more Americans are starting to understand that this is a serious problem. With 76% of Americans now saying that they believe that Earth's temperatures will rise in the next 100 years and 59% believing that it will be a serious problem for the human race going forward. That is great and all, but I don't see many people trying to do much about it. Sure, more and more people are turning toward green energy, but the change has been slow and thanks to big companies with a lot of money invested in old fossil fuel burning energy it has been even slower and frustrating. BP and Exxon like to try and convince us that they are doing great things for the environment, but maybe we should ask the people of the Louisiana coastline how much they would agree with that.

Look what you did... You're making Captain Planet cry.

The real truth of the matter is that no matter how aware of the problem we are becoming, we all still see it as some kind of distant thing that we might never really reach. It's a lot like trying to plan for next year's Labor Day party. It's less than a week away from Christmas. I can't think that far in advance, I need to get through what I am doing now, and if I need to use my car to hit eight different stores than so be it. I know I am hurting the world a little bit more, but I need to get my mother the right type of scented candle. Maybe the real problem is that the only reason anyone even noticed the hot weather was because of the Jet's game and the upcoming Superbowl being hosted in the NY/NJ area. Past that, no one even batted an eyelash. They were too busy worrying about who Miley Cyrus sexually assaulted this time, or what some bearded backwoods hillbilly said in GQ, (which by the way, A&E, you hired a redneck to do redneck things on TV. You shouldn't be that shocked by his comments. I mean if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and acts like a duck, then don't be too surprised when it quacks like a duck... pun intended.)

To be perfectly honest, I am as much at fault as anyone else. I have the same blase nature, I sometimes use my car way more than I should. I even sometimes throw water bottles in the trash can because I can't find a recyclable bin, but this needs to change and the evidence for why is all around us. There is no denying it anymore, because as much as I hated that icy snowy patch in my driveway, seeing it disappear I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever see it again. This may not be the kind of post you want to read around the holiday season, but maybe this is the kind of thing we should all be thinking about, especially now. In a little over a week it will be starting a new year and with that new year, maybe its time we all took a step back and made a commitment to do what we can to halt the progress of what is (very much) slapping us in the face. Christmas will come and go, but this problem is not going away, maybe ever.

 

This will be my last post of 2013. I will be taking a little break from blogging for a few weeks. I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season. I will see you in the new year.