It seems that we have reached that time of year again when the characteristically Scandanavian weather patterns in Washington abate and make way for summer. Our winters are usually tedious and unspecacular ordeals, marked by murky and gelid conditions, biting wind and little in the way of aesthetic precipitation. Eventually, they give way to half -hearted springs and locker room-style summers. This year, however, old Jack Frost barely put up a fight.
Indeed, the sun is shining, the temperature peaks out in the low 70s, shirtless guys are playing ball outside of my room, Red Square is packed with life and merriment, the loungers are back on Copley Lawn, lollygagging while working on their tans, and my friends from L.A. are not bitching as much.
While many of you may see this anomalously poor showing of the cold front as merely a convenient opportunity to jump the gun on spring procrastination on the green, I see it as something wholly different. Sunbathers and sandal-wearers: You make me sick.
Although many weather-forecasting experts merely chalk the premature heat wave up to some bastard child of the el Nino clan, one can hardly help but suspect their rose-tinted prognostications of a quick return to chillier conditions. Forecasters, you are living in a fool’s paradise, blinded by myopic glimpses at your five-day forecasts.
Now I’m no expert, but it seems to me many among us are blithely ignoring the writing on the wall. Indeed, short-sighted speculation that we are experiencing a climatic fluke belie the long-term implications of the current situation: Global Climatic Meltdown.
As the industrialized world dumps millions of tons of CO2 into the air over the next 40 years, the atmosphere will become increasingly saturated with carbon, thereby preventing reflected solar radition from being reflected back into space, creating an artificial “greenhouse,” raising the ambient temperature at an astonishing rate. Good news for plants, but not so good news for Joe Hoya. Sulfur dioxide emissions complement this trend by being absorbed into clouds and increasing their albedo and reflectivity. These fluffy nimbi might be pretty to look at, but beware hippie frisbee players: They also create a stifling heat-trapping blanket over the Earth which accelerates global warming to fevered pace.
To compound the problem, President Bush has scoffed at commitments to the Rio and Kyoto treaties that would have established a bulwark of international climatic awareness and activity. In eschewing our commitments, not-so-business-friendly emissions caps and renewable energy R+D, el Jefe has sealed our fates.
As forests are obliterated for your beef-consuming enjoyment, and temperatures rise, arable land will become desertified, shortening growing seasons and reducing yields. Crops will die as once fertile growing areas are reduced to Grapes of Wrath-style dustbowls, plunging Okies and D.C.ers alike into famine?a fate arguably worse than reading the book. Increased periods of heat will allow the over-winterization of tropical mosquitoes, which will make their way north spreading pestilence to our friendly Virginia suburbs. If you live in Darnall, you’ve probably already been bitten. As resources become increasingly scarce, new hostilities will arise in response to competition for goods. If you thought getting a Reuben in the dining hall was rough, you’re in for a treat. And just as the life is being slow-roasted out of our once-resplendent civilization, the polar ice caps will melt sending a catastrophic flood across the land, kinda like in that Noah’s ark story.
Now, once again, I’m no climatologist, but none of this sounds terribly pleasant. I’m not being so brazen and insensitive as to imply that we should forego tax cuts and increase federal work to adhere to international agreements to reduce global warming, and by no means am I suggesting that we individually engage in such tomfoolery as reduced consumption, recycling or vegetarianism. No, I am merely issuing a plea to all of you folks on Copley Lawn: Enjoy these, your halcyon days of mild winters, my friends?you might soon find yourself in the market for a life jacket.
