Global warming making it cool to be cold

(661 words)

This weekend I’m feeling like the hysterical woman in the 1961 “Midnight Sun” episode of “The Twilight Zone.” The classic stars Lois Nettleton as a distraught New Yorker imprisoned in her apartment as the mercury soars.

Earth is edging closer to the sun and we’re all about to be incinerated.

But the show has a happy ending, albeit “happy” is relative in a Rod Serling way.

It was all a dream!

The earth is not moving closer to the sun. 

It is instead moving further away and we’re all destined to in days turn into human popsicles. The doomed woman revives enough to — ahh! — smile at her frigid fate. Sure beats the heat!

It’s a coin toss, but in these days of mounting global warming I’m suddenly finding sub-freezing weather charming.

It’s cool to be cold.

Understand, it’s only cool as long as I’m insulated from it.

The forecast high for the next three days is 19. That’s 72 hours of the kind of bitterness that would have had the hardy men (and token pregnant Indian woman) of the Lewis & Clark expedition looking for a Motel 6. 

I’ll only be out doors for a total of about 45 minutes this weekend — 44 if parking spaces nearest the bar door are available. Bar time is an essential remedy to those of us prone to cabin fever.

Ensconced in our home right near the warm hearth, I’ll stir the fire, watch TV, read and smell the simmering soups.

Cold weather induces in inert relaxation; warm weather, frenzy.

A typical spring/summer/fall weekend involves yard work, house maintenance, garden weeding, mulch spreading, hyper recreation, etc. Oh, and it all involves lots of things that sting. It’s all in the pursuit of happiness, as misleading a phrase as there’s ever been.

Pursuit’s unnecessary. Find a comfy enough chair and happiness will find you.

I can list three reasons for my growing affinity for winter. One is brevity. This is a nasty stretch, but it’s only three days. It’ll be 50 again by Wednesday and in winter 50 is the new 70.

Two is ingenuity. I enjoy finding ways to outsmart winter, as I’ve done in the above picture. It’s my pullover hoodie splayed out in front of the furnace register. It infuses every fiber of the garment with a warmth that armors the body for the cold to come. 

Happily, the girls have inherited the wisdom of this trick and on days like this parts of the house resemble the warehouses where they ready the big floats for the Macy’s parade. Sadly, this will likely be the only thing the girls will inherit from me.

Third, I’ve outgrown the foolish need to behave stupidly outdoors.

I’m talking about attending the Steelers playoff game Sunday. Windchill temperature at 1 p.m. kickoff is forecast to be minus-4.

Ten or so years ago and I’d have been there. Heck, 10 or so years ago I was there.

It was the 2004 AFC Championship game versus the New England Patriots. Kickoff was 6 p.m. The high that day was 11 degrees. It was the second coldest game in Steeler history and maybe the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.

I’m a bitter-ender so I stayed till the final whistle, praying the whole time my car would start. We lost 41-27. I remember thinking, “Well, it was a tough loss, but hats off to New England. They won fair and square.”

Wrong.

Pats coach Bill Belichick later confessed in the NFL Spygate investigation he’d cheated and agreed to pay a $500,000 fine.

So on Sunday I’ll be cheering the Steelers from my recliner and hoping both teams play a fair game.

Because that’s the way of the six-time Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers.

And when the game is over, I’ll drop another log onto the fire, enjoy a hot meal and await the girls’ decision as to that evening’s filmed entertainment.

I’m hoping it’s “Frozen.”

Related …

In praise of, yikes, winter?

Winter’s over; Keith heads south

Winter forecasts all folked up

Future town halls to determine weather

Roll Tide: The last winter day

America getting too smart for its own good

My daughter, 11 and already beginning to sense fatherly failures, asked if I’d be teaching again this year. For three of the past four years I’ve taught creative non-fiction to graduate students at Point Park University in Pittsburgh.

No, I said. I’m done teaching.

“Did you get fired?”

No, it’s impossible to fire someone who doesn’t have a job.

“Why won’t you go back?”

They’re not interested in me. They said I’m no longer qualified.

“Too bad. I know you liked doing it.”

For a split second I thought about launching into a little parental dissertation about the importance of education, but my heart wasn’t in it.

And I don’t want to risk my daughter growing up over-educated like the rest of America.

New state regulations mean I have to on paper be at least be a smidgen smarter than the people I teach and that’s no longer possible.

I was an adjunct professor -- no salary, no benefits, no commitments. It’s the professional equivalent of a one-night stand. And I’m all for that.

The first day was always my favorite. I’d deliberately rush in to the first of 16 three-hour sessions 10 minutes late. Everyone was pissed.

Then looking frantic as a meth chef on deadline, I’d pull out a single sheet of paper and begin stammering: “When . . . I . . . heard . . . I’d . . . be . . . teaching . . . a . . . three ...”

Now imagine those excruciating pauses here: “When I heard I’d be teaching a three hour class I figured the only way I could talk that long for that duration was if I put . . . really . . . really . . . really . . . long . . . pauses . . . between . . . all . . . the . . . words.”

I had them by the end. They knew it was a joke.

My teaching was not. I earned uniformly good student evaluations and have maintained warm friendships with students who still seek my advice.

I think they liked my class because I’m an omnibus of their combined career dreams. Some of them dream of writing books. Some wonder what it would be like to dabble in tabloids. Some are ambitious to land bylines in prestigious magazines like Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Cooking Light, Men’s Health and Playboy.

I’ve done all that.

I loved college, but I’m confident I’d be the same writer I am today if I’d have skipped college and the subsequent student loan burdens and had instead sought a six-month internship under a crackerjack editor.

That was a recurring theme of mine made most emphatic in what I called my little-old-lady-in-the-woods postulate.

It’s about how while we’re engaged in lofty and theoretical discussions about writing, there’s a little old lady in the woods who just woke up today and decided she’s going to be a writer.

She never went to college, studied formal sentence structure or done much of anything but live her happy little life up there in the woods.

“This is the only calling where you don’t need any education. You can’t wake up tomorrow and say, gee, I think today I want to become a doctor, an engineer or even a school crossing guard. But anyone in the world with drive, a good story and a sharp pencil can tomorrow wake up and be a great author.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

I’m friends with many successful tradesmen. They repair roofs, unclog drains and fix your furnace when it fritzes.

They don’t talk about working. They work.

I’ve been encouraged to go back to school and earn another degree so I can resume teaching. Most of the people encouraging me to do so are the people who most benefit from all these people going back to school to earn more and more degrees.

They are academics. They think any problem can be solved through additional study.

On paper, America’s never been smarter. Everyone has a B.A., an M.A., an LL.D. or a Ph.Ds in sociology, poli sci or English lit. Many of them are doing honest work in places like Target and Lowes.

We do more thinking than doing and I’m thinking that’s a problem.

Pretty soon we’ll all be some sort of titular doctor fretting over coffee to one another about how there’s no one left who knows how to fix a busted fridge.

So, no, I’ll not incur $12,000 in debt to add another title indicating I know how to write.

If someone wants to see if I know how to write, I don’t show them a resume. I show them this blog.

It would require further study, but I wonder if this over-education is the root of Global Warming.

We’re all being burned out by too many degrees.

SCOPEtics & the sunny sides of global warming

It seems like in the entire recorded history of man there’s only been one ark and it belonged to Noah. I’ve never heard of Mel’s Ark or Burt’s Used Arks.

Well, the alarming increase and frequency of weather-related catastrophes convinces me we’re going to need a whole fleet of arks over the next 100 years or so.

For years, those of us who believe the science and anecdotal evidence that says global warming is real have had to contend with the shrill arguments of people who instead believe people like Rush Limbaugh.

These people are beyond your typical Global Warming Skeptics.

In fact, you could call them Global Warming SCOPEtics, people who believe we can continue to use fossil fuels at an alarming rate and everything will still wind up all green and minty fresh.

It’s a startling turn of events for a movement that spies doomsday scenarios in 14th amendment anchor babies, auto industry bailouts and President Obama’s birth certificate.

But present them with front page body counts from Biblical floods in Nashville, Pakistan and Arkansas and they say, “No need to panic. Just as God intended.”

They think nothing of record heat waves sizzling the eastern U.S., and drought and famine in Russia, Asia and Africa.

Their idea of prudent foresight in the face of these facts is to buy stock in the conglomerate that makes Coppertone.

How they explain last week’s news that an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan broke off Arctic Shelf and started drifting south, I do not know. Maybe they’ll say polar bears were eager to visit the Caribbean before bargain hurricane season rates expire.

Of course, they don’t believe Al Gore, and I understand that. I’m a partisan, too. I’d find reason to argue the contrary with Sarah Palin if she told me Levi Johnson, her on-again, off-again prospective son-in-law, is unfit to be Wasilla’s next mayor.

They certainly scoffed Sunday when The New York Times printed a detailed examination linking recent catastrophes to the likelihood that it is caused, at least in part, by global warming.

That’s fair, I scoff when Fox News claims it’s fair and balanced.

We live in divisive times. We have trouble setting aside our petty differences long enough to even decide which of our many pressing issues is urgent enough to deserve the next frustrating stalemate non-solution.

For me, the most poignant evidence of global warming has come from non-partisans who’ve enjoyed God’s eye views of the situation. Astronauts who’ve flown multiple times say that in just 20 years our world’s lost lots of white.

And National Geographic says Ernest Hemingway’s fabled Mt. Kilamanjaro will be without snow by 2022.

But those artistic sorts of arguments are unlikely to convince any “Drill! Baby, drill!” belligerents

Now I have a better one. It’s from Palin’s next door neighbor.

Yes, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev now believes in global warming and thinks drastic measures need to be taken.

“Unfortunately, what is happening in our central regions (heat, drought, famine, wildfires) is evidence of global climate change,” he says. “We have never in our long history faced such weather conditions as these.”

This is significant because the Russians had previously been on record as rooting for dramatic global warming.

Yes, one of the world’s most self-serving nations glimpsed the truly sunny side of to the phenomenon and basked in it. They thought it would thaw Siberia and open up economic opportunity in the always snowy hinterland.

So if leaders like Medvedev are saying the Russian equivalent of “Yikes!” then it is certainly something that should be accepted as fact and dealt with as dire.

If not, then we’re cooked.

Oh, well. There may at least be a slim silver lining to this sizzling apocalypse.

Some crafty entrepreneur is bound to earn a fortune franchising build-it-yourself ark emporiums that’ll give even old Noah a real run for his money.

Future town halls to determine weather

Today’s raucous town halls about health care will seem tame in 15 years when states convene to determine what sort of climate they want within their own borders.

And I believe that’s what the future holds. Today, our brightest minds are meeting to work on solving our most pressing problem: global warming.

I’m one of those types of pacifists that wants to strangle strangers whenever I hear them make Al Gore jokes during cool summers or mild winters.

I’m more persuaded by the veteran Space Shuttle astronaut who recently remarked that from space our world looks a lot less white -- and he wasn’t addressing demographic trends involving border jumping Mexicans.

He’d been in space about 10 years ago and marveled at the vivid colors of our gigantic marble floating through the cosmos.

There were blues, greens and, draped atop our majestic mountain peaks, blankets of pure white.

Now he says the whites no longer dominate the world in ways that should concern even those who are sensitive to things like racial balance.

The anecdotal evidence that keeps piling up convinces me. I saw a news report about a new picture book that contrasts images of iconic mountain tops like the Matterhorn from today with 50 years ago.

And isn’t that a honkin’ great name for a mountain? Matter-Horn. Toot! Toot!

Sure, it could be seasonal deviations, but there’s a lot less snow in places where snow used to be abundant.

I believe we’re finally waking up to a problem that threatens our very existence. Government, industry and the geniuses they hire are working together to reduce green house gases.

I’m confident they will succeed and by the year 2025, global warming will be stabilized. Mankind will have scored a glorious victory.

My fear is the inevitable over-reach that happens anytime man becomes arrogant with achievement.

Entrepreneurs will modify the science and -- voila! -- soon individual states will be allowed to manipulate the climate any way they want, according to the wishes of will of the voters.

Florida will decide to regulate its climate so it’s the comfortable 88-degree high/62-degree low all us snowbirds expect when we wing off to the Sunshine State.

More than 1/3 of the population in places like Vermont and Colorado rely on winter recreation for employment. They’ll be able to turn dials in the state capitals that mean frosty conditions will prevail from Labor Day through Memorial Day, when climatic adjustments will lead to thaws and immediate transitions to summer fun.

Scarred by decades of devastating fires, Californians will go against their sunny dispositions and dial up soaking rains every two weeks

Where things will get interesting are in places like Illinois, Michigan and here in Pennsylvania. These are the places where we bitterly bitch about winter, but enjoy the change of seasons.

Fall and spring are splendid. Summer needs no adjusting. I hate winter, but do enjoy some seasonal snowfall.
If I can, I’ll vote to ensure a white Christmas and will vote for heavy snows on just 10 weekends of the year, those being whenever the Pittsburgh Steelers play a home game on outdoor Heinz Field. I love watching the great Steelers play in the snow.

But what about cranky old-timers?

Heck in 2025, I’ll be a cranky old timer.

Will some yammering kid start shouting at me that she wants to be a Winter X-Game snowboard champ and thinks Pennsylvania should be smothered in year-round snow? I could see us getting into a town hall shouting match that will make the news when I bite the tip of her sassy finger off with my false teeth.

It’s bound to be an interesting and historic time.

Of course, it’ll all be rendered moot when in 2035 scientists begin to offer iPhone applications that allow individualized weather systems.

That way the weather we’re wanting can follow us all around like meteorological mood rings.

And, no matter what the weather, that’s promises to be really cool.