The Harmony of Discord

For the first time in many years, we are having a normal winter here in the mid-west-north. That makes it an unusual normal winter. We get snow every few days, the temperature ranges in the crisp zone between just above zero Fahrenheit to just below freezing. Red cheeks prevail and people shuffle quickly between their cars and houses, but the snowmobilers and skiers and fisherman are out without complaint.

A normal winter has become an oddity in this time of heightened concern about global warming. The issue won’t leave us, but instead will become part of our lives. We have affected the climate: that’s a fact. No longer something to fear, or at least a fear we have grown used to. Instead it will be an economic event coupled with a series of “natural” disasters such as Katrina, droughts, and flooding. Global warming has already become a political football – not longer an issue of science, but an issue of political advantage.