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The green winter: it's not your grandfather's weather anymore
By Kitty Kerner
The day before Christmas Eve, which I spent with my folks in northern Germany, I got up early and headed by bike to the big farmer's market across town. It was still dark, but as I pedaled through the park something seemed peculiarly out of place. It was the loud cacophony of birds, singing their hearts out as if it was spring, not the beginning of winter.
I've experienced mild winters there before and white Christmases are certainly an exception in that part of the world - but this bird behavior seemed seriously wrong. Everywhere in Europe there were signs of this out-of-place spring in December: cafés in Vienna put their tables and chairs back out on the sidewalk, Bulgarians headed to the beaches along the Black Sea, roses bloomed in eastern France, and in Sweden, bears went into hibernation two months late after the mild weather played tricks on their biological clocks.
The lack of snow forced ski areas from the Alps to Norway to close their runs and even cancel annual skiing competitions, while many resorts wondered how they will survive a season where the hotels are staying empty. For some, the equation is frighteningly stark: no snow, no tourists, no future.
Instead, Europe has experienced a stronger-than-average storm season this winter. January alone brought several huge storms with hurricane-force winds back to back, pelting the coasts, causing flooding and lots of tree damage, shutting down air traffic and even the entire German railway system for a night. As the storms rattled and shook our windows week after week, I felt like being stuck in some weird, colder version of hurricane season. Was this a preview of what's to come?
Extreme weather is always a popular topic and the media has been making the most of it. It's impossible to see any weather related coverage that doesn't mention the buzz words "global warming" and "climate change" right now. Yet many are quick to point out that the milder, wetter winter this year is probably more a product of the strong El Niño influence, than it is an expression of global climate changes.
But honestly, I don't really care if people wrongly blame global warming for Europe's green winter. If this is a good way for people to experience and feel what the abstract phenomenon "climate change" is like and how it could affect their very own lives and livelihoods, then this is much better than any propaganda you can ever throw at them.
Maybe people will actually pay attention and start doing something - from changing their own impact on the global systems to demanding accountability and action from their governments.
For most, an event that may happen in a hundred or even 50 years is still a long ways away. And for politicians, who typically don't think beyond four-year cycles, the concept of changing policies now in order to influence life on this planet several decades in the future is practically unthinkable. Yet in geological terms, severe global climate changes are right outside our door.
It doesn't matter if it will take years, decades or even centuries for the earth to reach that tipping point: in the big picture it's going to happen real soon. Already the evidence is piling up. From melting polar ice caps to record heat waves, stronger storms, dying coral reefs, and accelerating species extinction we are witnessing our earth coming unglued. Rising sea levels, increasing desertification, food and water shortages and a growing number of environmental refugees are some of the immediate consequences that will tighten humankind's grip on a planet already severely over-populated. No longer is there any question if those dire climate predictions will occur, but rather when and just how intense they will be. We still seem to have a tiny window of opportunity in which swift action can help ease the transition to this changed world - but change we must.
Of course, just as I write this, winter has finally made a late debut both in Europe and also in the eastern U.S., which was showing equally unseasonable temperatures up until mid-January. True to human nature, as soon as things are "back to normal," people will probably stop worrying that this winter might be tangible proof that something is wickedly wrong with our climate, and that we're the ones to blame.
So as far as I'm concerned, the green winter may be just what we need. We have to face the fact that the weather just isn't what it used to be like anymore. The more we're able to do picnic in January instead of hitting the slopes, the better our slim chances of slowing this juggernaut called global climate change that's hurtling our way.
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