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Page added on March 18, 2012
An eerie winter
Last week’s summerlike weather provided an exclamation point on the end of the fourth warmest winter in the lower 48 states. Back in late December and early January as the winter was unfolding, I thought to myself that somehow we needed eerie music piped into the sky to give people some clue about how they should feel. In the Great Lakes area where I live, we are used to having snow dumped on us in copious amounts–or at least we used to be.
I can remember as a child entire weeks given over to snow days with snow so deep we could build tunnels through it–much to my parents’ dismay. But with each decade, winters in the Great Lakes Basin have become more and more mild. This winter was not just a one-off. And yet, it was the warmest since 2000, and so people have remarked about it.
It’s the nature of those remarks, however, that begs for the corrective touch of a haunting soundtrack. So often did I hear what a pleasant winter we were having. How lucky we Michiganders were to have this balmy reprieve from snowy discontents. Naturally, the winter sports enthusiasts were disappointed. But they seemed to chalk it up to freakish weather patterns that are not likely to repeat next year.
We should take no comfort in the extremely cold European winter since climate scientists actually predicted this. They explained that the melting sea ice due to rising temperatures in the Arctic would favor “the formation of a high-pressure system near the Barents Sea which steers cold air into Europe.”
Back on my side of the globe, a friend in Texas reports that the multiyear drought there has gotten so bad that he is thinking about putting a diesel generator on his property to provide electricity during the expected brownouts and blackouts. This is because the continuing drought may force a number of electric generating plants to shut down for lack of cooling water from shrinking rivers and reservoirs.
Environmental activist Vandana Shiva has rightly dubbed what we are experiencing as climate chaos. Predictable climate patterns are changing everywhere with unpredictable results.
It is not always easy to pin down the causes of any specific weather pattern. And yet, the unprecedented rate of change in temperature and weather patterns worldwide should give us concern that the winter just past is but a preview of coming attractions. What the geologic record shows has previously taken 5,000 to 20,000 years to occur–namely, a 100 ppm rise in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere–has taken only 120 years in our era. What that implies is that in the past no single human being could have witnessed the kind of changes in climate we are now seeing in the space of a single lifetime or even a single generation.
In a way we have become inured to rapid change. The ever increasing drumbeat of industrial civilization and technological change has made us think that rapid change is both inevitable and good. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. So, when the rhythm of seasons is disrupted, it seems like just one more change.
Of course, climate change isn’t just one more change. And, it is the rate of change which tells us something is awry. It is the very fact that I can detect the general trend of warming winters in the Great Lakes in the course of my lifetime that ought to set off loud, buzzing alarms.
Alas, there is no one in charge of providing suitable sound effects for me or anyone else that would convey the predicament into which we as a global society are now walking with our eyes wide shut. I say eyes wide shut because even though concern about global climate change is very high nearly everywhere except the United States, little is being done to address it.
Earlier this month I highlighted two recent films which I thought captured the deepseated unease in our collective unconscious, an unease that is only rarely linked to our ecological predicament. The soundtracks of both were suitably eerie in keeping with the winter just past. But, it seems we’ll need a lot more eerie music before the great mass of people will be able to hear the frightening silence of a winter in the snowbelt…without snow.
10 Comments on "An eerie winter"
sunweb on Sun, 18th Mar 2012 11:45 pm
well done. I think we may have experienced climate changes in history, the “Little Ice Age” as only one example. These two books show patterns of overshoot – population vs resource depletion and degradation – that have been undermined by natural occurrences such as cooling, floods, volcanoes. Given any animals propensity to use as many and as much of the resources in its environment to survive and reproduce, humankind is tough on the environment and eventually itself.
Reinhart, Carmen and Rogoff, Kenneth. 2009. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton U. Princeton.
Chew, Sing. 2007. The Recurring Dark Ages. AltiMira. N.Y.
From: http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2012/02/over-and-over.html
Anvil on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 2:27 am
I love to hate BS articles like these. The use of creative language and imagination fills in the gaps to create a vivid image of the global warming scam.
BillT on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 8:03 am
Anvil, your lack of intelligence is showing again. You need to do some thinking on your blind rants. What peer reviewed scientific research have you published that you can honestly dispute the thousands of scientists that do publish research worldwide on climate change?
Deny all you want, but this is a strange winter in PA. I’ve seen 67 of them and this one is much hotter and dryer than any others ever. The temperate zone is moving north into Canada. Eventually, the mid-west will become a dust bowl again and probably permanently this time as there is little topsoil left to hold an moisture and the aquifers are almost dry.
jaki on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 3:51 pm
Anvil, BillT is so right, you lack the necessary intelligence to comment on an issue such as this.
I’m from the southeast which region is having a rather wet summer at the moment.No one’s around the beach earlier when i was there, when it supposed to be it’s peak. Weird.
Rick on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 4:55 pm
I’ll just come out and tell the truth —
People who deny AGW, are either stupid, or religious.
WhenTheEagleFlies on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 7:27 pm
Only an American would buy into the notion that Global Warming should be treated as a debated topic. Certainly there are global warming deniers who would keep on beating their gums even if the ice caps were gone and the tropics expanded up to New York City. I find it very depressing that there are that many stupid people in our country.
Simon on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 7:33 pm
Anvil’s sounding like a drone whose specific purpose is too drown out clarions trying to guide the lost ones. We will see his ilk spread more and more as more people disconnect from Mainstream Media and actually learning from alternative media sites like Peak Oil News.
The question is: What do you fear Anvil? Is the hopium for growth and going back to growth much like Tinkerbell that we all need to believe else it’ll die and not come back? Get used to the new reality and start preparing yourself and your community for the long emergency.
MrBill on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 8:00 pm
BillT,you nailed it.
Backcreek on Mon, 19th Mar 2012 11:12 pm
Rick. I’m religious and accept the science behind anthropogenic climate change. Maybe its just “stupid” that is the enemy.
Bizarrely warm March in PA. Decided to beat the April rush and put in the spring garden over the weekend. Forecast is for over 80 a week from this Thursday. Maybe I should plant the corn too!
Jon Flatley on Tue, 20th Mar 2012 8:31 pm
I’m a meteorologist and have studied the topic of climate change extensively.
All I can say is that the science is as clear as plate tectonics or the theory of relativity – the big difference is that the “answer” is costly for one of the biggest industries the world has ever known.
If the answer to stop AGW was for all people to stop using oil-based paint you can be sure the “misinformation campaign” would be much less funded.