Relief from climate breakdown global heating thingy really can’t come too soon. Here in central Canada the forecast is for temperatures to soar to -16. In metric; for Americans it’s still above zero, barely, at 3°F. Except that one’s the high for Jan. 21; the low at minus 22 is Sam McGee territory either way. (In case you’re not bilingual, they meet at -40.) Given headlines like “Arctic blast prompts extreme cold warnings in northern, southern Manitoba” it sure doesn’t feel like your grandfather’s global warming so much as ten miles to school in a blizzard uphill both ways. And it’s not just us. There’s “Rare storm blasts South with frigid temps, Gulf Coast to get record snow” and “Warning as life-threatening polar vortex will engulf parts of the US” as “temperatures could plunge up to 45 degrees below average”. If it were 45 degrees hotter, it would be climate. Instead “meteorologists expect the overall weather pattern to remain favorable for more arctic outbreaks through the end of January.” Just weather.
As was true when NPR informed us in December that “Storms across U.S. bring heavy snow, dangerous ice and a tornado in California”. It was “inclement weather” (channeling Scrooge, deliberately or not) that among other things dumped snow on a music festival in California. Mind you when storms pounded Greece in that same month, as you’d expect:
“Vassilis Kikilias, the minister for climate crisis and civil protection… has pointed to climate change as the cause of worsening weather conditions in Greece in recent years, including an unprecedented series of heatwaves that intensify wildfires, a severe drought this year and massive floods in central Greece in 2023.”
Wet or dry, it’s “climate change” because Greece apparently had neither rain nor sun in Odysseus’s day. Nor was it windy unless some lubber opened Aeolus’ bag. A story from Homer who also, inexplicably, claimed Greece was prone to wildfires, a wild tale repeated by the historian Thucydides.
Alas, now “Greece faces disruptions as severe weather brings snow, rain and storms”. But that story didn’t feature Kikilias or climate. Just as even progressive retailers like Canada’s Mountain Equipment Coop, while admitting that wintery conditions are coming and bringing challenges, says “Cold snap incoming” not “Hey, it’s winter in Canada, guess what”.
You can’t say the same of Texas, where the governor declared a state of emergency over the January winter storm that dumped snow and ice in a place where some kids really do gape in bafflement when white stuff come from sky, then make snowballs without mittens they don’t own and wonder why their thumbs went numb and pink. And similar emergencies were declared on the other side of the continent in Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina. That one even caused school closures in Sam McGee’s home state where, more typically, the white stuff in the fields is the cotton that “blooms and blows”.
Over in Britain, the cold snap or cold spell has turned into “the early onset of winter” or something of that sort, as fuel supplies grow perilously low. News stories may quote experts about “just a few cold days” but citizens know better as “The UK recorded its coldest January night in 15 years.” Despite which the Telegraph, at least in a photo cutline, did have the gall to call it a “cold snap” in a piece about gas running out “as freezing temperatures and low winds grip the country this weekend” as though it had just started.
The Times went full icy “Cold snap” even in its headline about running out of gas because it’s been so cold for so long. Even its cutline admitted that “Britain has started the year with heavy snow and freezing temperatures” that didn’t start last week.
The problem in Britain, and much of Europe, is also that cold days are often not windy, so ruining Brontë country doesn’t save Miliband country. Nor can you heat your home or cook your food with empty rhetoric from #10 Downing Street:
“Our mission to deliver clean power by 2030 will replace our dependency on unstable fossil fuel markets with clean, homegrown power controlled in Britain, which is the best way to protect bill payers and boost our energy independence.”
Kind of Scrooge meets Lenin.
It’s not just Europe and North America. AP heralds “Making art and fun from the ice, snow and freezing cold in Harbin, China” with nary a trend or a climate in sight.
Gotta hand it to the Canadians: They (you) can sure handle the English language.
The Cremation of Sam McGee is the greatest English-language poem to come out of North America.
And Robson is to climate journalism as Service is to poetry.
The climate change religion in Britain is apparently so immovably ingrained into the political class that cold weather deaths of the poor and elderly will have to rise to unmistakably dramatic proportions before any sane energy policies are adopted. Oh well, at least they have plenty of coal there.
global climate warming change! The horror, the horror.
Roger,Net Zero Watch in the UK is highlighting how badly stretched the electrical grid is stretched there.Their cold spell combined with little wind or sun for their solar panels has left some areas very close to outages at the worst possible time.Not even mentioning the skyrocketing energy rates there.
Maybe the Brits will be forced to fire up old coal plants eventually like Germany has?
The problem is Mike is that all the closed down coal fired stations have been blown up and vandalised.
Abso-Dam-Lutly!