Monday Afternoon Wake-Up Call

Posted on by Live & Learn

I’m an incorrigible heat seeker, and the phrase “wintry mix” fills me with despair. But even so, the lack of cold and ice in 2023 felt unsettling…I was thinking about this while standing outside a science museum a couple of days ago with a friend. We were talking about the weather but not the kind of small talk when you have nothing else to say. “I’m not sure our grandkids will even know what snow is,” she said, with a wry “I’m kidding, but I’m not” laugh…

This past June, Brooklyn was covered in a blanket of smoke from Canadian wildfires. The sky was a muted burnt sienna and the air smelled like a barbecue gone severely wrong. I reassured my son, who had many questions, that the neighborhood was not on fire.

It is my job to make my child feel safe, so I answer questions about scary, calamitous things when he asks, but carefully…he still experiences extreme weather as a novelty and not a threat. I hope he’s much older before he notices a drastic temperature change or more smoke in the air or the fact that it’s New Year’s Eve and there’s no snow on the ground at home. I believe humans can reverse some of the harm we’ve caused to the environment — we’ve done it before — so I’m not a total pessimist. But I am worried.

It finally snowed a bit in Omaha, on Christmas Day, no less — a bit of temporary relief. I’m not worried that my grandchildren, if they ever materialize, will grow up not knowing what snow is, as my friend suggested. But I wonder if, somewhere down the line, one of my descendants will build the last snowman in Omaha.

—  Elizabeth Spiers, from “The End of Snow” (NY Times, January 2, 2024)

Notes:

  1. No snow for Christmas (and no snow yet this winter). I get it Elizabeth.
  2. Photo above. Mine. Feb 28 2023. Seems like eons ago. Cove Island Park. 6:17 am.  If you want to get reminded of what snow looks like, as it’s been so long, here some additional shots from that day.

9 thoughts on “Monday Afternoon Wake-Up Call”

  1. Beautiful photo Dave. In the late 80s, I lived in a VT country house on a semi-steep dirt road. The family celebrated Christmas there one year, and the road was so icy that people had to abandon their cars and walk to my house (maybe 100 yards). Green Christmas days were VERY rare back then. I live about 20 miles further north now. These days the odds of a green Christmas seem to be about 50/50. Back then I would say the odds were about 85/15.

  2. I love the photo David –haunting and very melodramatic. I’m not sure I agree with Elizabeth’s take on things. I think it’s a lot worse and, surely, it’s our job not to scare the kids to death but to shine a light on the science that underpins the state of the locus in quo and the wider world. My kids think I’m a doomster whenever I mention the climate — i.e. the sky is falling in — but I think it behoves me, once in a wee while, to remind them that growth of all stripes (still the sine qua non of the Western culture) is the reason for our current situation, and perhaps it’s time, and not because I say so, to look in a different direction — not geoengineering but less of everthing — for the solution (not that there is one…) to the climate catastrophe. Take care, Julian

  4. The photo a light beacon for people and birds:) I hope the young man who was sleeping in his car, not far from where you took the photo has found a place to live inside…/// Now, I am a Debbie Downer…I don’t like cold or heat…I like regular according to Christie – which means 58 to 72 Maybe 74…and the forest fire smoke, ugh I saw a photo of the top photos of 2023 which included a photo of the forest fire smoke hanging in NYC from the Canadian fires.
    I showed it to the husband he said ugh and then we said as awful as that is it has been worse here…If we could afford it we’d say at the cool coastline in the summer & not sure what an alternative for the winter would be…I would not be able to handle summertime humidity…

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