[Expletive deleted], it’s cold!
It’s statistically the coldest winter in the last five years. According to A.I., this is due to a “significantly stretched, weakened polar vortex, allowing frigid Arctic air” into our cities. The polar vortex usually keeps the cold air locked in near the North Pole, but because it has been stretched, like the Sharpie outline of a hurricane path, we’re getting snowed, literally.
I recently went to five locations, looking for windshield wiper fluid. The only place I found it was Home Depot on Forest (shhhh…don’t tell anybody!) At another location, there were signs on the door, listing the various products they had run out of.
Apparently, no one saw this coming. It would be easy to blame the recent cuts in funding by the president for this. Those cuts left nearly half of the Weather Service offices with a 20% vacancy rate. But, I also blame climate change. And again, the president seemed to blunder recently by asking, if there was global warming, why it was so damn cold.
The same mistake was made by Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who brought a snowball to the Senate floor in February 2015 and used it to discredit “global warming.” What both these gentlemen somehow missed is that global warming refers to a warming of the planet which then causes severe weather changes. At present, the Arctic is warming up four times faster than the rest of the planet, destabilizing both the jet stream and the polar vortex. The term was switched to “climate change” because folks like Senator Inhofe and the current President just don’t seem to be able to fully grasp the idea, while denying that it’s happening.
But, it is happening. And we are witnessing the consequences.
On a local level, our streets have become treacherous. The Department of Sanitation, bless their hearts, are doing everything they can to ward off the effects of the snow. New York City has 27 snow melters available. Staten Island got ONE, located near Midland Beach. Needless to say, there is only so much the Sanitation Department can do. It was filling a five pound bag with 10 pounds of…eh…snow.
And then, there were the delays in garbage pickup. Well, stands to reason…if cars are having problems parking or finding a spot, pity the poor sanitation truck driver. We got lucky. Our landlord took care of our stoop for us and the area right outside our house. But other folks didn’t fare as well. There were even discrepancies block to block. Walking was really tricky. Driving even more so, because piles of snow caused many cars to park further away from the curb, making almost every block an obstacle course.
And still, the garbage kept piling up. The Department of Sanitation was overwhelmed. Because nobody saw this coming.
We got completely hosed the last five years. I remember walking around in November wearing a hoodie. Everybody said it was so great that our winters were so calm. Five years later, nobody is cheering.
You remember the winters of our childhood, don’t you? I remember it snowed once in April and nearly cancelled Easter. We’ve had all the opportunity in the world to fix the massive mess we’re in. Former Vice President Al Gore told us in 2006 that we were facing a crisis. Did we listen? Yes. Did we do anything about it? No. Currently, 49 million people are in denial about climate change, with many of them living in states such as Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama and North Dakota.
All of these states have experienced severe drought, storms, flooding and hurricanes as recently as 2024.
Why do some folks refuse to believe what’s happening in front of their very eyes? Because the weather, like almost everything else, has been politicized. For some reason, admitting that the earth is experiencing more severe weather conditions has become a sign of leftist thinking, when it’s obvious that weather has no political “side”…it just exists. And we have to learn to exist along with it.
We need to reach out to our representatives and ask them to make this concern a priority and, at very least, not make it worse by enabling companies and products that harm our environment. We can do our part by recycling and being aware of the harm levels of the products we use. But, most importantly, taking note of the waste we produce and how to safely eliminate it. That push to make composting a “thing” went away pretty quickly when the composting wasn’t collected. Like the trash bins we were told to buy, which were never delivered or, in our case, stolen, composting came and went without a whimper. And now, we have to deal with mounds of snow blocking the Sanitation Department from picking up even the regular garbage.
Pity the Department Of Sanitation, they’re trying their best. But with one snow melter for the whole Island…it’s a toy shovel, a toy bucket and an entire beach!
Winters can be brutal in New York. That’s why a lot of folks move to Florida. But, that’s not for me. And if it’s also not for you, then we’ll just have to agree to be nicer to each other and “weather the storm.” Because that’s really the only true cure for the wintertime blues.
That and maybe one more snow melter!
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