White Easter

I’m jealous. Jealous as hell, of people in certain parts of Michigan,Cleveland, and some other areas. All week, I’ve been dreaming of a “White Easter”, and what do I get? Disappointment in the form of a long, hard snowfall that barely registered in the end at a quarter of an inch. Not enough to cover the ground or the road, just a slight dusting.

No easter egg in the snow hunts for me this year. Just the cold without the beauty. Yeah, I think snow is beautiful. Of course I don’t have to be out in it for very long at a time either. Still, there is nothing prettier than standing at your window at night and looking out over the ground and road covered with a thick blanket of snow, especially if snow is still falling, as you watch it through the street lights, and it clings to the trees.

Oh well, enough of that, maybe next year. Of course I realize a lot of people are going to trumpet this as proof that global warming is a fake issue. After all, how could it snow on or near Easter, in April, enough to stick to the ground, if the earth really was experiencing global warming? How the hell could it be cold in South Carolina, for Pete’s sake?

Don’t get me wrong, I am by no means a big believer in global warming, at least insofar as how it is supposedly being caused for the most part by human activity. But this does not constitute proof or evidence against it. What seems to be responsible for this phenomenon is the jet stream forcing cold air down from the north and maybe the Arctic circle, further south than is typically the case this time of year. This while dropping the temperatures also adds to the moisture of an already typically moist time of year, and so voila-the result being snow. You can actually make the case that the melting glaciers through global warming actually adds somewhat to the accumulated moisture from the north.

And actually, you can make the case that human activity might play a role in this present phenomenon, not in the sense of carbon emissions, but at least insofar as cold temperatures in South Carolina. Might the constant mountaintop removal and land flattening that has taken place over the years in the aftermath of coal mining-especially strip mining-play a role in allowing the cold air to travel more or less uninterrupted further than usual?

I think there is more to the removal of trees and mountaintops that plays into the change in weather patterns in the midwest of the US, actually, than can be blamed on carbon emissions. Or, at least, it plays as large a role. I talked about it in this post here, and I am somewhat perturbed that it has really taken a back seat to concerns about carbon emissions. After all, as I said-well, it’s speculation to a large extent on my part, but I think I’m on fairly strong ground-the more trees that are removed and not replaced, the less carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere, while the less oxygen is being returned at the same time.

At the same time, the lowering of land levels through mountain top removal, as well as trees, eliminates the buffer that therefore allows more warm gulf air to travel northward into the midwest, thereby warming temperatures in the winter. And, so now it seems, allowing the gulf stream to carry colder temperatures from Canada to, say, South Carolina.

Of course, bear in mind that there would be a huge political drawback to regulating mining in mining states, even though there are supposed to be laws that mandate land restoration to the original contours. They are not strictly enforced, in fact, they can be ignored and discarded if there is a demonstrated need for city expansion.

Still, it’s not a winning issue in Kentucky. The business owners don’t want it, of course, but neither do the workers, who might be threatened with lay-offs. Also, after all, some of the citizens in these towns own land that they potentially stand to make millions of dollars from, but in a good many cases, not if the companies have to tack on the expense of land contour restoration. In a lot of cases, they would stand nothing to gain by the purchase of such lands.

Then, of course, you add the expense that will be added, passed on actually, to the consumers in these regions. What would that amount to? Most people might be able to suck it up and deal with a one or two percent increase, but a seven or eight percent increase of more would cause a severe hardship on some families. And I’m just sticking with this to the region. Outside the immediate region, the increase would be much more, so you can multiply the economic hardship exponentially.

This of course is precisely why mining safety regulations are rarely enforced, and why therefore you have the resultant mining tragedies that have occurred (though to be fair mining is still much safer than it ever was in the past). At any rate all these reasons are why not much headway is being made. It’s that old road to hell paved with good intentions scenario.

It’s just an unfortunate fact that, if all of these laws and regulations ever were enforced, you might well end up looking forward to that lump of coal in your Christmas stocking. Or in your easter basket.