Regardless of whether global warming is a natural cycle or not, there is every indication that humanity is hastening it by its bad habits on the environment. One of my favorite cartoons is of a father and son walking in the snow. The boy is as tall as his father's waist and the snow is just under his nose. The father is saying, "It doesn't snow like it used to when I was a boy." He makes a gesture passing his hand under his nose and states, "When I was a boy it snowed up to here."
When I was a child, snow started in the fall, early, and was high enough that we could make tunnels in it. In the past 50 years I have seen it deep enough to tunnel in only twice and that was almost 30 years ago in the blizzard of '78. Labor day was the day we put summer clothes away because we knew it would soon frost and all annual vegetation would be dead one morning soon. Our first freezing frost in now coming in November. As of today, the maple trees in my back yard have green leaves on one variety and yellow leaves on another, still on the branches. This did not happen before in my recall. My Impatiens finally went to its parallel universe and the blooms left my garden just a week or more ago. While it is lovely to be warmer and wear lighter clothing, and I love not having the freezing winters with which I grew up. There is a reason for it that many politicians seem not to want to hear.
In freezing temperatures, my Great Laurel closes its leaves up so that it looks like each whorl is hugging itself to keep warm. I was surprised last winter to see how seldom that happened. Even the burning bush (usually ablaze by this time of year) has not yet turned red all over. If these signs are in my limited cosmos, what about the pictures of glaciers I flew over in 1989 that are totally gone near Juneau? Today it is quite a different sight. The frozen past is almost gone.
Meanwhile, the short-sighted think it is a blessing with heating prices so high. 200 billion catalogs are mailed in the US each year. Environmentally that is like adding another 200 million cars on the road. I should think that companies could save a lot of money if catalogs were mostly online, or requested, since only about 1 1/2 % (if they are lucky) draw sales. We, the buyers, pay for all these catalogs, many of which land in the trash without even being opened. Think of the trees that would be saved, the more oxygen returned to the atmosphere and the more carbon dioxide being sucked up.
Oh well, as long as there are easily duped people in our world, things will go on as they have been for the past few years, downhill fast!
When I was a child, snow started in the fall, early, and was high enough that we could make tunnels in it. In the past 50 years I have seen it deep enough to tunnel in only twice and that was almost 30 years ago in the blizzard of '78. Labor day was the day we put summer clothes away because we knew it would soon frost and all annual vegetation would be dead one morning soon. Our first freezing frost in now coming in November. As of today, the maple trees in my back yard have green leaves on one variety and yellow leaves on another, still on the branches. This did not happen before in my recall. My Impatiens finally went to its parallel universe and the blooms left my garden just a week or more ago. While it is lovely to be warmer and wear lighter clothing, and I love not having the freezing winters with which I grew up. There is a reason for it that many politicians seem not to want to hear.
In freezing temperatures, my Great Laurel closes its leaves up so that it looks like each whorl is hugging itself to keep warm. I was surprised last winter to see how seldom that happened. Even the burning bush (usually ablaze by this time of year) has not yet turned red all over. If these signs are in my limited cosmos, what about the pictures of glaciers I flew over in 1989 that are totally gone near Juneau? Today it is quite a different sight. The frozen past is almost gone.
Meanwhile, the short-sighted think it is a blessing with heating prices so high. 200 billion catalogs are mailed in the US each year. Environmentally that is like adding another 200 million cars on the road. I should think that companies could save a lot of money if catalogs were mostly online, or requested, since only about 1 1/2 % (if they are lucky) draw sales. We, the buyers, pay for all these catalogs, many of which land in the trash without even being opened. Think of the trees that would be saved, the more oxygen returned to the atmosphere and the more carbon dioxide being sucked up.
Oh well, as long as there are easily duped people in our world, things will go on as they have been for the past few years, downhill fast!
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