PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Subfreezing temperatures across much of the U.S. left millions of Americans facing dangerous cold as Arctic storms left four dead and knocked out electricity to tens of thousands in the Northwest, brought snow to the South, and walloped the Northeast with blizzard conditions that forced the postponement of an NFL game.
A couple guys I’m acquainted with were joking about that last week.
I reminded them when I was in school, it was snow days before Thanksgiving, white Christmas every year, and we could get snow in early April, whereas now I’m wearing a t-shirt and shorts in late December and it was warm enough to go swimming in the lake in November.
And I’m younger than them
My dad said this once, I asked him when was the last time he thinks he could DRIVE out onto the lake like he used to with his brothers as teens. He still maintained that “global warming” was making someone money more than it was real, but from then on he never mentioned it unless someone asked him directly, and hasn’t mentioned it at all in years. His wheels may turn slowly sometimes, but I think he’s getting there. Still votes against his own interests as a veteran who desperately needs affordable Healthcare and insulin, though.
Exactly. This is cold weather, but it’s the middle of winter. It’s supposed to be cold weather!
Definitely south of you, since for me as a kid the frost would kick in from October and you couldn’t expect snow until very late November/early December on through February. By then, it could snow, but in my experience it was mostly turning to sleet. Christmas was always white and we always got a couple feet.
Not enough to dig tunnels in like my mom used to do in Chicago. The mountains to the east protect us from the worst of it. But enough to make one snowman after another, all with the initial base larger than a 10yr old is tall, until we were all too frozen to stay outside. We could go sledding. We could build protective snowball forts if we took the time.
I haven’t seen the snow for 14 years, and both those times were technically one state north. One of those, even, was so pitiful we settled for a medium turtle on my end and what my brother touted as the world’s smallest snowman balanced in his open hand.
My aunt has denied climate change my entire life up until 6 years ago when I finally got her to admit something may be odd. We were out in the parking lot, about to pick up my Xmas present in mid-December. It was 75F.
I don’t hear the birds like I used to.
I am in infrastructure and even our token office MAGA (pretty sure it is the law that every office has to have one) has come along on global warming. We know shit is overheating that shouldn’t be and flooding is happening where it historically has not happened before. How? Government works the same way everything else does. If your fridge breaks you get a new one and put it in the same spot. When government stuff breaks we put the new one where the old one was. Meaning we know that a given site didn’t have problems in the past but has them now.
Me personally I have just accepted that the rest of my life will be palliative care. It makes it easier to face this crap. I can’t stop what is happening, but I can do what little I can to minimize suffering as it happens. Maybe the nightmare scenarios will come and the last things I do on earth will be putting in pump systems to buy us more time. Maybe they won’t and I am worried over nothing.