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.
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Happy New Year, the hard-luck holiday. It was ten years ago this week that I was riding around Washington, DC in a crowded car and asked my fellow travelers to share their favorite memories of past New Year celebrations. My request was followed by several minutes during which the only sound was the clatter of the car’s undercarriage as we careened in and out of potholes on Interstate 395. Finally, someone remarked he couldn’t ever remember enjoying a New Year’s celebration. The rest of the car quickly agreed and the subject was changed to something more palatable.

Arriving so soon after Christmas is something of a curse for New Year’s, the little stepsister of the winter holidays. After all the driving and the flying and the visiting that attends Christmas, no one seems to have the energy to go rip roaring off on New Year’s. Or maybe that’s just me, getting old and crotchety.
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So now we approach the solstice and our days are growing short, the year draws to an end. In this season, I always find myself reflecting on the year that is passing away.

Six months ago this week, as our hemisphere reached out toward the sun, I was brooding about Hong Kong. The British were about to end a tenure of a century and a half and editorial writers everywhere, myself included, were filled with apprehension for the fate of the four million Hong Kongese once the People’s Republic of China took over. Most of the many stories closed with a wait-and-see attitude. Six months later, I’ve done a fair amount of waiting and very little seeing.
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