Climate Change is Real, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

With apologies to Sergio Leone. This is a crosspost from my Facebook page:

Well here we are, 18 January 2023 and it’s almost T-shirt weather out (actually it is - I let the dogs out this morning in a t-shirt and shorts (me, not them) and it was nice and cool) - average temperatures must be close to 5-10 C above normal.

Back yard is green, devoid of snow and sodden. If it’s possible to have the water table above ground and not call it a lake, then that’s what we have here in the Valley.

There is a supposed 5cm of snow in the forecast for Friday but with the temperatures near 0C, God knows what we’ll get!!

Time to break our our new winter wear - raincoats and rubber boots. Have a great day, think cold, frozen ground thoughts and snow until April. Now if that isn’t a sign of climate change, I don’t know what is…

And from a later post:

Look at me!! Outdoor Christmas lights are down and put away and it’s not June!! Maybe there’s something to this climate change thing after all? Hmmm...

If there were any doubt that climate change is real, today should dispel it - high of 7C here in the Valley, a nice Spring Day on the 18th of January.As you can see from the crossposts above, a great day to be outside - dogs are loving it and the grass in the backyard has never looked greener in January. Question is, when will Winter start and when it does what will it be - looks like one with no skating on lakes, no snowmobiling and for those folks who plow snow, they're off to a great start.

The big issues are economic and social - growing season changes, too much water, too little water, things growing when they shouldn't in microclimates that aren't natural, invasive species moving North, the change of employment, particularly for seasonal folks, many more and an overall impact on ways of life today and into the future

We're past the point of not doing anything - the ugly of climate change is with us now and it appears to be just one more new normal to adapt to.

Interesting times...

Things That Make Me Go Hmmm... The Digest

 There's lots of things these days that are making me go hmmm... (or worse), so thought the easiest way to get them out was to create a digest of some of them...

• Moved to Mastodon, so far I like it better than Twitter. So far there does not seem to be any of the crazy that seems to have taken over the little blue bird. Check it out!
• It seems that even Republicans are finally starting to notice what many of us have seen for years - that Donald Trump is not the best candidate they can have for 2024 (or for any election for that matter). Just his dinner companions should give pause, let alone everything else. Maybe money will talk and move on.
• In the province where I live there were 10 deaths, 31 hospitalizations and 500 new cases of Covid last week. Add to that RSV and the flu and we're are still in a pandemic soup. Get vaccinated, wear a mask and social distance please!
• If you think climate change isn't real, then explain how we still have vegetables growing in late November. Or is Swiss chard simply indestructible?
• Congrats to Team Canada for winning the Davis Cup - very cool,
  and to the Men's Soccer team for representing Canada so well at the World Cup. (if there ever was an event that makes you go hmmm...)
• My life is run by a 10 pound Yorkie and I am completely OK with that...