As Washingtonians finally dug themselves out Friday to brave clogged metro trains and icy roads on the way to the office, one of the lasting impacts of the past week is the discussions it has provoked about how climate change has impacted the current weather - and how this weather might impact the ongoing debate here over how the U.S. government should address the threat of climate change.
Dubbed the "snowpocalypse" – or sometimes "snowpocalypse II" in deference to the previous storm that blanketed Washington in December – the scenes on the streets this past week have actually seemed eerily post-apocalyptic. Silent, monochrome and empty, they have, for some, forebode a world in which no action is taken to stem the effects of climate change.
Others, though, see the wintry landscape as undermining the direness – or even the reality – of the threat posed by climate change, which they prefer to refer to as global warming, thus underscoring what they see as the incongruences between the phenomenon and the snowy spell.
via www.truthout.org
Cathie's notes: I thought this article was a fun review of "snowpocalypse" with a dash of scientific rebuttal thrown in. Whatever your position on climate change, I still think it's good to stay in touch with what the "other" is saying. Making space for polar opposites in one's own mind is an act of love that clears the way for healing conditions on Earth. Without that space there's less room for new ideas, new ways of doing things, to emerge.
