no snow = me cry now

It's January 4, and I am outside wearing just a t-shirt and pants. As I was biking home from work today, I passed several groups of kids who were outside playing. Not a single one of them was wearing a jacket. In Hamilton, it's currently 8.4 degrees Celsius, and from the picture you can see quite obviously that there is no snow on the ground. Statistically average temperatures for our region tend to hover around -4.5 degrees Celsius. This time last year, January was exceptionally warm and was followed by a cold February. When I was a child (we're talking the 1980s, so not really that long ago), winter was a season lasting many months, usually from early November through to late March. From the look of things currently, it seems as though southern Ontario will once again experience a drastically shortened winter season, perhaps only a little more than one month.

For those of you outside North America, now is traditionally the time in which the whole of Canada is stuck in a deep-freeze. The winter is a major component of our national cultures and identity. Furthermore, the season is a source of revenue for some and an ecological necessity for others. I myself am a big fan of snow, and its rather conspicuous absence so far this year suggests to me something exceptionally alarming. More alarming however is the fact that other than a major breakup of ice in the Canadian arctic, the weather is not really being discussed in the general media.

There was a bit of an awareness campaign that was sparked by the release of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change by the British government. Frankly, this little bit of bedtime reading should be mandatory in schools and boardrooms.

Oh yeah, that same British government is expecting 2007 to be the hottest year in recorded history. So far, we're off to a tragic start.