Everywhere I turn there's the same story. A winter with below average or no snow. I grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, which proudly boasts of being the second snowiest place in the country It averages more than 100 inches per winter. This year they have gotten 21.5 inches to date. Last year by this time Erie had gotten more than 40 inches of snow. I don't need to go on about the caused of the shortfall. It is manifest from coast to coast. Except for the most deluded climate-change deniers, the warming of the planet will soon endanger all human life. There are lots of answers but few people willing to implement them.
I think of you and your baby often. Maybe his or her generation will be able to make this a safer and kinder place for all of us. I have not given up hope.
Just stay away from the dystopian stuff. You don't want to send bad vibes coursing through your veins to the little one. On the other hand, I don't have much experience to draw from but do some sci-fi books involve idyllic settings where everyone lives happily ever after?
Jeff, You’re welcome to visit us here in California’s Sierra Nevada, where we’re snowbound for the second year in a row. Interstate 80 at Donner Pass has been closed 48 hours. Mammoth Mountain closed because it got too much snow…again.
Mammoth also has natural CO2 vents in the forest; these spew more CO2 around the clock than humans here do. ( https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mammoth-mountain/science/carbon-dioxide-mammoth-mountain#overview or just google Mammoth CO2 ) The storms and still-actively volcanic Sierras are bigger than any human influence. No, we don’t have any climate change here beyond the natural rhythm of change over centuries.
These days, in each season, I am reminded of Al Gore’s 1996 book Earth in the Balance. Every consequence of a rapidly warming planet is coming to pass. Our world is experiencing all the whiplash effects science predicted : droughts, floods, fires, rising sea levels, dying coral reefs, migrations due to extreme weather effects… And then I ask, what if those chads hadn’t been hanging in Florida; what if the Supreme Court had come to a different consensus? Would we have wised up sooner, acted faster? Could we have derailed the express train we’re on to these armageddons? Here’s to hindsight and her bitchy sister Karma!
Fascinating blog..... we don't have the dust factor in VT (usually) - but when we do, I notice the snow melts a lot faster. Our problem this winter (so far) is lack of snow and extremely warm temps for February and March. 50's and low 60's. Still could get another wallop of snow (usually mid-March - last year 40 inches)... but seeing the hills almost bare this time of year, the fact that I only used my snowblower twice this year..... all of this makes me worried. Getting more rain, more flooding... and for me, living with a brook in front of my house that turns into a raging torrent with the heavy rains.... it's uncomfortable, to say the least. I packed up my car with clothes and animal food three times since last fall. Way more than usual. It's just a matter of time.
Thank you for this informative and engaging post. I had never thought of or heard of the dust issue but it makes sense. The lack of snow is an issue that effects so many states and too many people. And too many of those people are like me, seeing the dust but not connecting the dots to the eventual and inevitable consequences.
Interesting story. Fun facts. I love your cat updates. (I live with two cats, who manage the place and I’m just part of their staff.)
About dust on snow: Thinking of the vast dunes in the Southwest, and volcanoes erupting through history, perhaps we needn’t fret about natural processes like snow melting.
This was beautifully written, but it made me so sad. My friend recently drove from LA to Vegas and spoke of the barren landscape in between, filled with islands upon islands of green. Every golf course had sprinklers on full blast. It was frightening to think how much precious water was being drained. I would be run out of some town if I said golf courses should be a thing of the past. Then I could tell you about another friend who worked on one during our high school years on the Island of my birth and would always have chemical burns from the herbicide/pesticide stew he had to spray the grass with.
I don't feel like dust is nearly as big an issue for us here: the closest big downwind source for it is maybe in the Palouse country, and Idaho is kind of a filter for that. (It's also not nearly as sunny here as in Colorado, so changes in albedo would play a lesser role.) We've certainly had a low snow year so far, though, and we'll be paying for it in all the ways.
I saw a WaPo story yesterday about the changes in average winter temperatures 1980 to the present. We've actually gone down in a lot of places in Montana, in contrast to the East. Cortez is up, Telluride and Durango are down. But if dust from points south is taking the place of temp changes, the San Juans are in the soup as much as anyone.
Exactly. We're thankfully reaching average snowfall here, with March being our biggest month for precipitation, but no telling what'll happen in the desert and when it'll reach us.
Everywhere I turn there's the same story. A winter with below average or no snow. I grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, which proudly boasts of being the second snowiest place in the country It averages more than 100 inches per winter. This year they have gotten 21.5 inches to date. Last year by this time Erie had gotten more than 40 inches of snow. I don't need to go on about the caused of the shortfall. It is manifest from coast to coast. Except for the most deluded climate-change deniers, the warming of the planet will soon endanger all human life. There are lots of answers but few people willing to implement them.
I think of you and your baby often. Maybe his or her generation will be able to make this a safer and kinder place for all of us. I have not given up hope.
Likewise on the hope. But I've also been reading a lot of sci-fi.
Just stay away from the dystopian stuff. You don't want to send bad vibes coursing through your veins to the little one. On the other hand, I don't have much experience to draw from but do some sci-fi books involve idyllic settings where everyone lives happily ever after?
Gotta lean a little fantasy for that it seems.
Jeff, You’re welcome to visit us here in California’s Sierra Nevada, where we’re snowbound for the second year in a row. Interstate 80 at Donner Pass has been closed 48 hours. Mammoth Mountain closed because it got too much snow…again.
Mammoth also has natural CO2 vents in the forest; these spew more CO2 around the clock than humans here do. ( https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mammoth-mountain/science/carbon-dioxide-mammoth-mountain#overview or just google Mammoth CO2 ) The storms and still-actively volcanic Sierras are bigger than any human influence. No, we don’t have any climate change here beyond the natural rhythm of change over centuries.
These days, in each season, I am reminded of Al Gore’s 1996 book Earth in the Balance. Every consequence of a rapidly warming planet is coming to pass. Our world is experiencing all the whiplash effects science predicted : droughts, floods, fires, rising sea levels, dying coral reefs, migrations due to extreme weather effects… And then I ask, what if those chads hadn’t been hanging in Florida; what if the Supreme Court had come to a different consensus? Would we have wised up sooner, acted faster? Could we have derailed the express train we’re on to these armageddons? Here’s to hindsight and her bitchy sister Karma!
"her bitchy sister Karma" lol, at least I can love that
So many things would have been different. Can't know exactly how. I suppose it might have been worse. But hard not to wonder what if.
Fascinating blog..... we don't have the dust factor in VT (usually) - but when we do, I notice the snow melts a lot faster. Our problem this winter (so far) is lack of snow and extremely warm temps for February and March. 50's and low 60's. Still could get another wallop of snow (usually mid-March - last year 40 inches)... but seeing the hills almost bare this time of year, the fact that I only used my snowblower twice this year..... all of this makes me worried. Getting more rain, more flooding... and for me, living with a brook in front of my house that turns into a raging torrent with the heavy rains.... it's uncomfortable, to say the least. I packed up my car with clothes and animal food three times since last fall. Way more than usual. It's just a matter of time.
It's certainly happening, and it's hard to believe the greed behind it. Here's hoping there are enough people coming up the ranks willing to fight.
Thank you for this informative and engaging post. I had never thought of or heard of the dust issue but it makes sense. The lack of snow is an issue that effects so many states and too many people. And too many of those people are like me, seeing the dust but not connecting the dots to the eventual and inevitable consequences.
Re- When the West melts:
Interesting story. Fun facts. I love your cat updates. (I live with two cats, who manage the place and I’m just part of their staff.)
About dust on snow: Thinking of the vast dunes in the Southwest, and volcanoes erupting through history, perhaps we needn’t fret about natural processes like snow melting.
We're all dust in the wind eventually.
This was beautifully written, but it made me so sad. My friend recently drove from LA to Vegas and spoke of the barren landscape in between, filled with islands upon islands of green. Every golf course had sprinklers on full blast. It was frightening to think how much precious water was being drained. I would be run out of some town if I said golf courses should be a thing of the past. Then I could tell you about another friend who worked on one during our high school years on the Island of my birth and would always have chemical burns from the herbicide/pesticide stew he had to spray the grass with.
We've really done this planet and ourselves wrong.
I don't feel like dust is nearly as big an issue for us here: the closest big downwind source for it is maybe in the Palouse country, and Idaho is kind of a filter for that. (It's also not nearly as sunny here as in Colorado, so changes in albedo would play a lesser role.) We've certainly had a low snow year so far, though, and we'll be paying for it in all the ways.
I saw a WaPo story yesterday about the changes in average winter temperatures 1980 to the present. We've actually gone down in a lot of places in Montana, in contrast to the East. Cortez is up, Telluride and Durango are down. But if dust from points south is taking the place of temp changes, the San Juans are in the soup as much as anyone.
Exactly. We're thankfully reaching average snowfall here, with March being our biggest month for precipitation, but no telling what'll happen in the desert and when it'll reach us.