<< HIZB UT-AUSTRALIA ~ MAIN ~ PICTORIAL PACO >>
OMINOUS MILDNESS
Global warming threatens the very essence of Canada itself:
Canada’s typically harsh winter weather continued to spare most of the country over the weekend as mild conditions prevailed instead of the snow and deep freeze many would expect at the start of January.
And while many cheerfully enjoyed the unseasonal treat, others pondered what it all means for Canada’s national identity.
Why, it means Canada will be destroyed! Just like the Tangs and the Mayans.
She says she’s most concerned about Canadians of a different sort.
“I just think about the poor polar bears. I feel badly for them.”
Good grief, the frickin’ polar bears again. Well, what about the moose? What about the wolverines? What about the frickin’ no-see-ums that are going to have to work year-round now that Canada has become such a tropical hothouse? Anybody think about them, eh?
And while many cheerfully enjoyed the unseasonal treat, others pondered what it all means for Canada’s national identity
Just in case you Aussies don’t understand left wing Canadian code,
National Identity
is the equivalent to Aussie
Cultural Cringe
.
Posted by Go Canucks on 2007 01 08 at 12:03 PM • permalinkActually, I can see mountains in Quebec from my back yard, and we have had mosquitos this past weekend. As well as birds building nests. It is odd, but like I said above, very likely not to do with greenhouse gasses.
As for other comments about the warming, which I believe is largely natural, being a great thing. I personally don’t like it. I could live anywhere I want. I left Florida so I could live in a decent climate. I still own a house there. 90 degrees and 90% humidity for eight months is not my thing. I agree with Mark Twain’s sentiment, “If I owned a house in Hell and a house in Miami, I would rent the house in Miami and live in Hell.”
I should be running my snow machines flat out on miles of snow covered ice a foot thick right now. Kind of a great white north version of the bonneville salt flats. Instead there were at least five boats on the lake yesterday fishing. Oh Well.
Asin Khan, 26, of Halifax said this winter has been a stark change from what he remembers in his youth.
“Fourteen years ago, we used to get extreme snow in the winter—really long winters with deep, deep snow—but lately we’re lucky to get a white Christmas,” said Khan, seeking cover from a steady rain.
I guess Asin was out of town in 2004:
http://www.cbc.ca/newsatsixns/archives/2004_feb_w3.html
[Scroll down to Thursday, February 19, 2004. I can’t get a link page directly to the archived TV news reports.]“It is quite alarming, but I’m sure we’ll get a couple of storms in the next couple of months.”
And re. the Ontario ski resort layoffs, they’re also saying that it hasn’t been this bad for skiing in (IIRC) 14 years, meaning that this is hardly unprecedented.
Meanwhile, Quebec’s Green party used the warm January weekend to score some political points. [...]
“We grasped the opportunity just to remind people that climate change is not going to go away,” said party leader Scott McKay.
And you can tell that a political party has alot of influence in Quebec when its leader is named Scott McKay. /sarc
And I didn’t know that you spoke Canadian, RebeccaH; beaudy, eh. And I thought that your son and his buddies looked quite smart in their Smokey the Bear hats, paco. It’s what all the best-dressed tough guys wear!
;^)Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 08 at 12:11 PM • permalinkHelp, Andrea! The italics can’t be stopped even with a [ / i ] posting as I performed in #8.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 08 at 12:13 PM • permalinkBefore anyone says something about the Tardis and maybe its effect on the Tang and Mayas, we didn’t go anywhere near 900 AD. Our field trip * to Charlemagne’s time was a whole 90 years before that.
* for strictly educational purposes
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 08 at 12:31 PM • permalinkAnother “mild irony”, when you consider the colder than normal temps this year in western North America, is that we’re in the middle of an El Nino. Last time we experienced a significant (not that this one is significant) El Nino (‘97-‘98), warm water big game fish were spotted in our normally frigid Pacific Northwestern waters.
My sister and her family in north New Jersey buy season tickets every year to the local slopes. This year they haven’t been able to use them once as it’s too warm to even make snow. Vermont is experiencing similar difficulties. I would expect any gerbil worming scheme concocted in our Democratic Congress to include federal subsidies for businesses adversely affected by too warm/too cold temperatures. Could be the biggest boondoggle ever.
Soon it will cost close to an extra US$100 to fly out of a British airport. If they’re trying to discourage me from visiting, they’re going about it in the right way.
Oh well, we all grumble about the weather but nothing is done about it.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 01 08 at 12:44 PM • permalinkI live in Halifax. My back is still sore from the ‘White Juan’ shovelling from Feb’04(we had been hit by Hurricane Juan 5 months earlier).
In St. John’s, Newfoundland (Damian Penny country), they had something like 619 cm of snow in the winter of 2000 or 2001.
I’m enjoying the mild winter so far, but I haven’t put my shovel away.
Posted by Nova Scotia Mike on 2007 01 08 at 01:16 PM • permalinkGlobal warming is a remarkable process. According to the Independent global warming is responsible for a surge in Britain’s rat population, it’s nothing to do with rubbish being uncollected for longer periods of time. I say it’s gloabl warming but in fact it’s global warming and privatisation! I’m sure institutional racism and income inequality are also causes.
Rob Read: hm, will check that out when I get home.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 08 at 02:02 PM • permalinkBy the way I fixed the italics.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 08 at 02:05 PM • permalinkI live in Toronto, my snow shovel is gathering dust, my boots are free of salt stains, the clunky stroller with the thick wheels remains folded up, I’ve been able to cut back on the layers of clothing, and my heating bill is lower.
I’m not complaining.
We will, no doubt, be inundated with a whopper of the white stuff before the month is out. Maybe we’ll call in the army to clear it - again.
At which point it’ll be back to the “climate change” trope (“Snow fall levels unprecendented in, uh, seven years…“0
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2007 01 08 at 02:40 PM • permalinkDoes no one care about the Spruce Beetles??? Cold weather kills spruce beetles. No cold weather, lotsa spruce beetles, who eat up spruce trees. Spruce beetles deserve a life too!
And I can remember the days when it was minus 60 for weeks, now it barely gets to minus 40 and then only for a day or so, darnnn, I am so worried. Change is BAD.
Hmmmm.
As someone who grew up in New Hampshire with a father who believed that shoveling snow builds character, while leaving the honking big John Deere tractor in the heated garage, I can say truthfully that I *love* global warming.
happiness > snow.
Posted by memomachine on 2007 01 08 at 04:42 PM • permalinkThis is not to mention the people of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman empires of centuries past. Where are they now?
Dead. Every single one of them. Who would be foolish enough to rule out global warming?
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 01 08 at 04:59 PM • permalinkMy brother moved for a job to Kitchener, Ontario in the mid-70’s. Everyone told him, “the winters here aren’t as bad as those from the US seem to think.”
He said it started snowing just after Canadian Thanksgiving (late October, right?) and he had around 5 feet of some kind of white stuff in his lawn until April or so. He was very much not wanting to see a bad winter.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 01 08 at 05:09 PM • permalinkKate took some pictures of a prairie winter just for you folks that think 1cm of snow is winter.
Posted by Go Canucks on 2007 01 08 at 09:00 PM • permalinkKyda—Cozumel and Cancun are nicer than Ibiza anyway…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 08 at 09:17 PM • permalinkJust in case you Aussies don’t understand left wing Canadian code,
National Identity
is the equivalent to Aussie
Cultural Cringe
Hmmm.. from my time of living in Canada, I gathered that the Canadian National Identity was:“Everyone take note, please. We are not Americans”
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2007 01 08 at 11:19 PM • permalinkAnd as an Aussie who has survived a northern Canadian winter - minus 40 dec Celcius AND Farenheight, before wind chill - I say you can’t have too much gerbil worming in Canada. And if it affects the ice wine trade .... tough luck. Mabe Mike
TysonHudson will write about it.Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2007 01 08 at 11:21 PM • permalinkA couple of years ago, I complained to Tim that it was -27°C in Montreal in December (the day my first grandson was born).
Many of you committed yourselves to doing something about it.
I want to thank you all most sincerely for your sterling efforts.
jlc
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 01 08 at 11:59 PM • permalinkYour right about that SCD, however it’s the intellectuals and students that babble on about their inferiority complex to the US. Regular people are to busy making a living to worry about meaningless arguements.
The Aussies don’t have the US beside them so their intellectuals compare their culture to the rest of Europe and the US.
BTW: When I was in Europe 2 years ago, I never told anyone that I was Canadian or wore a flag, and I was treated just fine.
Posted by Go Canucks on 2007 01 09 at 12:09 AM • permalinkOh no, the polar bears are melting. We are doomed, dooemd, I tell you ....
....to a snow-free and warm winter. I love it. Perhaps we’ll get a 6 month growing season, that’ll be good for my beans.
I am not optimistic though. I expect it to get cold just as soon as a I return.
How come the lack of hurricanes did not generate a cry of loss of Floridan identity this year, due to glbal warming?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 09 at 09:23 PM • permalink#28 Actually, I was hoping for fig trees.
#32 Spot on, Stop Continental Drift. (And I agree re. global warming’s effects—still no snow to shovel so far!)
#34 Thank Al Gore for flying everywhere, Jack. (And belated ‘happy birthday’ to your grandson.)
#35 I agree, GC.
#36 Finally back, eh, Wimpy? Did you catch my Junior Hockey updates while you were away? Great final game despite the Euro ref’s usual b.s.! There must have been three times in the 1st Period when a Russian went down to block a shot from the point, and our guy stopped short and just deked around him.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 09 at 10:03 PM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
And a mild irony about this story is that it is quite cold in Western Canada, including usually-mild Vancouver getting snow and a major wind storm, and it’s only unusually mild in Eastern and Central Canada while one of the big complaints in the Canadian confederation is that Central Canada doesn’t give a darn about the West. So here are wankers in places like Toronto, the centre of the universe (well, I do live there), saying that the loss of the shared experience of cold winters may hurt the country’s unity in a future, warmer Canada while ignoring that it’s a regular winter out West. Heh.
BTW, there’s been all sorts of
climate changeglobal warming scare stories in Ontario’s liberal media (that basically means the entire country’s liberal media) about the NE’s unusually warm winter seeing Ontario’s ski resorts laying off hundreds and hundreds of workers and nothing, oddly enough, about how great the season has been in the Rockies.