Am I the Only One Who Remembers What Winter USED to be Like?

[countryguy]

Last week was cold - no two ways about.  A couple of nights, the temperature, here, exceeded 20^o below zero.  That's ambient temperature - wind chills were reported to be in the -50 to -55 degree range.  People died.  At least two students at midwest colleges reportedly froze to death, outside the dorms.  Schools were canceled.  The news media called it a "Polar Vortex", which sounds pretty scary.

Waidaminit, there -- schools were canceled because of the cold??  This is Wisconsin.  Wisconsin always gets cold, in the winter.

Now, I'm not claiming to be one of those fabled people who had to walk two miles to school, in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways.  But, I grew up in Wisconsin.  I know what Wisconsin winters have always been like.  And, I can guarantee you, that when I was young, school was never canceled because it was too cold.  If it had been, we would've had to spend all summer, making up the missed days.

A night of 25^o below?  Yeah, it's cold.  But, we had weeks of -25^o nights.  We had -40^o nights.  I can even remember at least three times that the LP gas wouldn't flow, and the furnace went out.  At -50^o, LP gas won't "gasify", in the tank.  It remains in a liquid state, and thus won't flow thru the gas lines.  We had to get charcoal going in a metal pan (cake pans work), and push it under the gas tank (that was what the gas company told people to do).  After a while, the gas in the tank would be warmed up the couple of degrees needed, and the furnace would work, again.

I guess, I was just a little bit amazed, by all the media panic about the "polar vortex", when there was nothing I could see, that wasn't just good ole Wisconsin weather.  (By the way, it hit -23 degrees again, last night.  So far, no panic on the news, this time.) 

[A159]

Same here. Winters in Ohio when I was a whippersnapper was pretty darn rough. I honestly don't remember school being called off and yes, we walked a good mile + with tons (50/60lbs worth) of books under our arms. We also didn't measure wind chill temps and the damn wind would blow like crazy!!! Then kids, post A159's school days, began having cars bought for them. Less homework came next. Then calculators and lap tops. Oh, the pain from the weight! And we were called cream puffs by the DIs once inducted into Sammy's military. Oh well.

[countryguy]

I guess, maybe, what's changed is - don't tell Trump about it - the climate!  Trump doesn't wanna hear about it, but it's gonna keep happening, no matter how much he denies it.  Global warming, in and of itself, doesn't noticeably warm a particular area a noticeable amount.  Not directly, anyway.  We're talking about a global temperature change of a fraction of a degree, over a ten-year period.

What it does do, however, is affect things like arctic and antarctic ice melts.  Which, by way of currents, affects the oceanic temperatures.  Remember the talk, a few years ago, about El Nino and El Nina?  Those refer to ocean temperatures in specific areas of the Pacific.  As the polar ice melts, the cold ice water is carried south, by the pacific current, cooling the waters all along the way.  That, in large part, is what causes El Nino and El Nina.  Since the prevailing winds across the USA are from the west, the cooler ocean cools the air, in those winds.  This affects the jet stream.  And, its the changes in the jet stream, largely, which produces changes in our local weather.

In some ways, it might seem nice, actually.  I haven't seen one of those -50^o nights for, probably, 40 to 45 years, now.  A week of -30^o nights is also pretty rare, these days.  It's been quite a few years, since I've seen snowbanks, along the highways, that almost touch the electrical wires, up on the highline poles.

But, there's a downside, coming.  I probably won't see it - I'm getting to be an old codger, now.  But -- our children might see it.  If nothing's done, our grandchildren almost certainly will.

At some point, the arctic and antarctic ice caps will be gone.  There won't be any polar ice left, to cool the ocean currents.  I can see what people are left, referring to the areas in the Pacific not as El Nino (the boy) or El Nina (the girl) --- but something more like El Diablo - The Devil.  And, the effects of El Diablo won't be so mild.  The problem is, that people like Donald Trump and his conservative followers, don't, really, care.  They won't be around, to see the worst of it.  Many of them, including Trump, are as old as I am.

And, the bottom line is, they just don't care enough, about their own children and grandchildren, to make a few changes to their own lifestyles.

 

[A159]

In just a few words, Earth is doomed in short order. We're dealing with climate extremes. Avg temps are rising yearly. More drought is coming …. more floods are coming. The cost of living will continue to increase in order to struggle with all of this. I keep thinking that the rich will continue to push for the colonization of our moon or Mars so that their demon seeds will have a place to escape to. But, good luck with all of that. Between aggression and stupidity, man will knock himself out to eradicate mankind.

[countryguy]

And, really, all because people don't want to make a few inconvenient changes to their lifestyles.  The technology exists, to just about completely cut ourselves off from fossil fuels - the primarily culprit, in climate change.  Would it be expensive?  Yeah, it would.  But, look at the alternative!

As I said, before, the current generation of power people don't think they'll be around, to see the worst of it -- so, they just don't care.  They can talk all they want, about how much they love their children and grandchildren, but it's all feel-good bullshit.  If they really love their children, they would never leave them a world about to kill them. 

That's the hard truth, whether they like it or not.