The worries of a warm winter
There used to be a time when an exceptionally warm winter would be treated as a gift from the weather gods; a time to throw aside heavy coats and engage in the joys of spring at a time of year more usually associated with shoveling driveways and huddling under comforters. Yet, this year, as the temperature has crept into the 70s here in the northeast, I’ve found myself becoming increasingly nervous with each passing day. Sure, it’s great to go out wearing nothing heavier than a fleece vest. And it’s great not to have to scrape ice off of the windshield in the morning. But these feel almost like guilty pleasures because it’s simply not supposed to be this warm in the winter. And although this year’s mild season may well be just a natural quirk of nature, I can’t help but think that this is a taste of what global warming is doing to our world. And I’m not alone. Today’s New York Times has an article about the Westchester Global Warming Task Force, which includes the observation that “even if you are no fan of snow and ice, this elongated break from winter weather is giving most of us an uneasy feeling. You cannot quite enjoy it because you know something is up.” Of course, the snowbound in Colorado and citrus farmers in California might disagree with that assessment. But the effects of global warming aren’t distributed evenly. And like the woman in the Twilight Zone who awoke from a nightmare of the Earth moving closer to the sun, only to discover that the opposite was occurring, we northeasterners may well wake up a few years from now to discover that melting polar ice caps have lowered the temperature of the Atlantic, and the warm winters of today will be a distant, sad memory. This nightmare has only just begun; let’s hope we all wake up before it’s over.
January 23rd, 2007 12:18
UGH I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU HAVE THE SAME LAST NAME AS ME. I WANTED THIS DOMAIN >:o
oh well I’ll have to get creative won’t I
January 23rd, 2007 12:28
speaking of which, did you know there was a municipality in England called perton? that’s all I ever got when I googled myself.
weird, I thought I was all alone, until I found you
January 23rd, 2007 16:37
Oh okay I just looked at your links. You did know that.
January 23rd, 2007 17:20
Well, actually, I’ve owned this domain for about 10 years. There are lots of Pertons out there. Be sure to check out Victor’s site. He was definitely the first Perton on the Net.
http://www.victorperton.com/
January 29th, 2007 16:39
haha, that’s so crazy. I mean I guess I didn’t check this domain until I decided on a whim that I wanted to own one. It was a shock to find out that Perton is a village in Britian, but paradoxically more of a shock to find out that there’s people out there with the same last name as me, which I found out from my father was the mangled Americanized version that appeared when my “ancestors” checked in at Ellis Island. I think we were Poltanavicus or something, I honestly don’t know.
Do you know the origin of your “Perton”?
January 29th, 2007 16:42
haha, that’s so crazy. I mean I guess I didn’t check this domain until I decided on a whim that I wanted to own one. It was a shock to find out that Perton is a village in Britian, but paradoxically more of a shock to find out that there’s people out there with the same last name as me, which I found out from my father was the mangled Americanized version that appeared when my “ancestors” checked in at Ellis Island. I think we were Poltanavicus or something, I honestly don’t know.
Do you know the origin of your “Perton”?