Every January for the past several years, I have sought out an editorial forum to speak about climate change. This tradition is a reactionary one; each year I find myself responding to a meteorological crisis linked to global warming.
This year’s crisis was an ice storm, which locked much of the Northeast, including my house, in its grip for several days. The thermometer remained stuck at 32 degrees. The precipitation was constant, falling as rain and freezing on contact. Every branch and twig carried an inch-thick coat of ice. For two days, the air was filled with cracks like rifle shots as limbs snapped and crashes like falling china cabinets as ice-coated branches collided with the ice-covered ground. Soon the lights began to flicker and go out as power lines fell. Streams and rivers, swelled by rain and clogged with ice, leapt their banks. Water ran in torrents through the streets as berms of ice formed around the mouths of storm sewers. Rain continued to lash down from skies laced with thunder and lightning.
Thunder and lightning are not normal for January in the Northeast. Thirty-two degrees is ten degrees too warm for January in Vermont. In the middle of the storm, the Associated Press announced that 1997 was the hottest year in recorded history and even more scientists are now saying global warming is the direct result of burning fossil fuels.
Last week’s big ice storm should have been a big snowstorm. We’re equipped for that, we have plows, snow shovels and long johns. Instead the big oil companies have inserted themselves between nature and human society and as a result, two million people in Quebec are living in shelters because they have no power. The Northeast lost tens of thousands of trees this week and without them global warming will accelerate that much faster.
The same week in which the Northeast was attended by torrents of rain and sheets of ice, automakers in Detroit announced that within a few years, they will sell cars that can drive 60 to 80 miles on a gallon of gas. Not only that, but many of these cars will have two means of propulsion, gas engines complemented by electric engines or hydrogen fuel cells.
These are the same people who pounded on the conference tables in Kyoto, Japan a few weeks ago, disputing the existence of global warming at all and claiming that if industrialized nations were forced to reduce their output of gases from fossil fuels, it would wreck the world economy.
Now in the balmy air of January, as the Asian banks are on verge of beating everyone to the punch on the economy-wrecking front, the automakers stand ready to introduce a full fleet of fuel-efficient cars, and General Motors is calling on the federal government for an additional subsidy.
I don’t think anyone believes the Detroit automakers whipped up a batch of fuel-efficient cars in the last six weeks, during the year-end holidays. These cars have been sitting on the shelf for years, and they’d still be on the shelf if the automakers and oil companies had gotten their way in Kyoto. It should be clear, even to the dullest congressman, that when we make environmental policy, we should be guided by the vision of the world we want to leave for our children and we should ignore corporate objections to the contrary, because, as Detroit has just proven for the umpteenth time, such objections are based on lies. And in this particular week, it is the citizens of Montreal who are paying for Detroit’s lies.
Here in Vermont, last week’s snap and crash of falling limbs has given way to the growling drone of chainsaws as we clean up the mess and I’m left to wonder how many more Januaries I will have to speak out on climate change before I can end this ungraceful tradition.
The Ice Storm
Every January for the past several years, I have sought out an editorial forum to speak about climate change. This tradition is a reactionary one; each year I find myself responding to a meteorological crisis linked to global warming.
This year’s crisis was an ice storm, which locked much of the Northeast, including my house, in its grip for several days. The thermometer remained stuck at 32 degrees. The precipitation was constant, falling as rain and freezing on contact. Every branch and twig carried an inch-thick coat of ice. For two days, the air was filled with cracks like rifle shots as limbs snapped and crashes like falling china cabinets as ice-coated branches collided with the ice-covered ground. Soon the lights began to flicker and go out as power lines fell. Streams and rivers, swelled by rain and clogged with ice, leapt their banks. Water ran in torrents through the streets as berms of ice formed around the mouths of storm sewers. Rain continued to lash down from skies laced with thunder and lightning.
Thunder and lightning are not normal for January in the Northeast. Thirty-two degrees is ten degrees too warm for January in Vermont. In the middle of the storm, the Associated Press announced that 1997 was the hottest year in recorded history and even more scientists are now saying global warming is the direct result of burning fossil fuels.
Last week’s big ice storm should have been a big snowstorm. We’re equipped for that, we have plows, snow shovels and long johns. Instead the big oil companies have inserted themselves between nature and human society and as a result, two million people in Quebec are living in shelters because they have no power. The Northeast lost tens of thousands of trees this week and without them global warming will accelerate that much faster.
The same week in which the Northeast was attended by torrents of rain and sheets of ice, automakers in Detroit announced that within a few years, they will sell cars that can drive 60 to 80 miles on a gallon of gas. Not only that, but many of these cars will have two means of propulsion, gas engines complemented by electric engines or hydrogen fuel cells.
These are the same people who pounded on the conference tables in Kyoto, Japan a few weeks ago, disputing the existence of global warming at all and claiming that if industrialized nations were forced to reduce their output of gases from fossil fuels, it would wreck the world economy.
Now in the balmy air of January, as the Asian banks are on verge of beating everyone to the punch on the economy-wrecking front, the automakers stand ready to introduce a full fleet of fuel-efficient cars, and General Motors is calling on the federal government for an additional subsidy.
I don’t think anyone believes the Detroit automakers whipped up a batch of fuel-efficient cars in the last six weeks, during the year-end holidays. These cars have been sitting on the shelf for years, and they’d still be on the shelf if the automakers and oil companies had gotten their way in Kyoto. It should be clear, even to the dullest congressman, that when we make environmental policy, we should be guided by the vision of the world we want to leave for our children and we should ignore corporate objections to the contrary, because, as Detroit has just proven for the umpteenth time, such objections are based on lies. And in this particular week, it is the citizens of Montreal who are paying for Detroit’s lies.
Here in Vermont, last week’s snap and crash of falling limbs has given way to the growling drone of chainsaws as we clean up the mess and I’m left to wonder how many more Januaries I will have to speak out on climate change before I can end this ungraceful tradition.