Everyone Talks About It

Last month I commented a few times about how weird the weather was. Well, it is still unseasonably warm, although the weatherpeople are predicting snow over the next couple of days.

Here are just a few weather-related items:

• several golf courses have been open for a week, making this the first golfing January ever;
• bushes appear to be forming buds and crocuses have been reported in the London area;
• birdwatchers in Presquile Park near Brighton report seeing six robins and one kingfisher;
• people have reported seeing squirrels mating;
• Blue Mountain ski resort had to temporarily lay off 1,300 seasonal workers last week due to lack of snow;
• fishermen are out on the lakes fishing for perch -- in boats, not in ice-fishing shacks;
• retailers report that people have ordered snowmobiles but have not picked them up yet because there is no snow on the trails yet;
• I personally saw a caterpillar crawling on the sidewalk last month.

Mark Twain once said about the weather that "everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it". Judging by the odd events outlined above, it appears we are starting to pay for all the things we've done in the past to accelerate global warming. I wonder what we can expect in the future. Perhaps twenty years from now people will refer to us as the "great green north".