Some climates never change

Here in Eastern Canada, in an area that used to be known as the "snow belt," on January 5, middle of the day, it's 10C outside and the temperature is still climbing. The neighbourhood skating rink is a swimming pool. We filled it a few weeks ago and it hasn't shown more than a slight covering of frost on one or two chilly mornings. The local ski resort is closed, and the Christmas break ski camp they offer to schoolkids was cancelled. Rather than offer refunds, they are offering 'incentives' for the kids to go find snow somewhere else, or wait until later in the season. I suspect they don't have the money to pay it back without going under. I've got very healthy looking spinach growing in my yard. No kidding. I'll take a picture on the weekend if I can get through all the mud out there. We're hoping for a nice 'cold snap' on the weekend that will bring the temperature down to about 4-5C higher than the seasonal average. The west coast is being battered with storms like never seen before -- they're having a hard time keeping the power on and, when it goes off, large urban areas teeter on the brink of catastrophe. Greater Vancouver's tap water was deemed unsafe to drink without boiling for several days -- the largest 'boil water order' in Canadian history. Farmers in Australia are going bankrupt for lack of water. Food is becoming scarce.

Yes. It's an El Nino year and, yes, virtually every one of the effects I've just described are predicted El Nino events, though we've never seen them with this kind of intensity. But good old El Nino gives us a way to shrug this off as an anomaly for just one more year. Globally, there's a good chance that this will be the warmest year on record. The Canadian government is showing some small sign that it is paying attention, if not to the weather then at least to the growing cries for some concession to an imminent catastrophe with a bit more oomph than a small tax credit for those who buy bus passes. Rona Ambrose, our insult of an environment minister, has been fired. Though there's no evidence her replacement has any particular insight into the environment, a fresh face is better than nothing.

For all of this, my closest decent newspaper, the Globe and Mail, carries a story today about climate change the most interesting part of which for me is the collection of reader comments. At last count, about 1/3 of the commenters were online to ridicule the notion of anthropogenic climate change. The main arguments seemed to be that 1. we don't really know what climate was like in the distant past and all evidence suggests that present trends are just natural long term trends (they're not.) and 2. weather forecasters are always wrong. This latter criticism puzzles me. My experience is that weather forecasters are seldom wrong. If the Environment Canada forecast tells me its going to rain, then it rains. It may be off about the amount of rain, but not the fact of it. Weather models have improved vastly since the genesis of this old canard about forecasting. So has monitoring both on the ground and by satellite. Meteorologists don't have every answer, obviously, and the further they look into the future, the less certain they can be about the details. But this all makes perfect sense and is true of any kind of prediction. I can predict what I'll have for dinner tonight. And perhaps tomorrow. Not so much a year from now (will I still have teeth?). Or ten years from now. But I can predict that I probably will eat something. This doesn't mean I don't know anything about my own diet.

Sigh.

Many have said that we will only reverse the planet's fortunes with a coordinated global effort similar in scope and commitment to the effort it took the Alliance to win WWII. With about 30% of us in full denial stage, probably at least that many of us in full ignorant bliss, and the other 40% of us not really knowing what to do, it's hard to keep my chin up about prospects for my kids.

That little son of mine, not quite 3 years old, not the least bit complicit in any of this, is going to be a part of a generation that will suffer like we haven't seen suffering since at least the Middle Ages.