We Need To Talk About Greta Thunberg

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg was named
Time Magazine's Person Of The Year, and
some older white men are triggered again. 

Greta Thornberg, the now-famous 16-year-old climate activist, was named, to virtually nobody's surprise, as Time Magazine's person of the year. 

Thornberg dominated headlines for much of 2019. with her activism, which really brought to the fore a youth movement that is holding much older world leaders' feet to the fire on the subject of climate change.

All this seems to have a special talent for triggering white, rich men.

A lot of people expected Thunberg to be named Time's 2019 person, including me. Also predictably, the Time magazine announcement on Wednesday triggered more, um, triggering among mostly older, white guys.

Donald Trump Jr. the president's son tweeted, "Time leaves out the Hong Kong Protesters fighting for their lives and freedoms to push a teen being used as a marketing gimmick."

 Well, yes, there's lots to be admired about with the Hong Kong protesters, since they're pushing for democracy and all. The Hong Kong protesters seem to be more into democracy than Don Jr's father, but I will save that discussion for another day.

Seems Junior, the author a bad book called "Triggered," was himself triggered. Also predictable.

As usual, Junior was nothing compared to his father, the supposed president of the United States.

Today, our petulent president tweeted Thursday, "Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old-fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta Chill!"

Of course, Thunberg immediately clapped back at Trump by changing her Twitter profile to read, "A  teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend."

This is the second time Thunberg made President Trump look like the hapless Looney Tunes coyote being played by the road runner.

 During a September United Nations speech, Thunberg said, "People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales and eternal economic growth."

Our beloved President Trump responded on Twitter (of course!) mockingly:

"She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"

 Thunberg immediately changed her Twitter bio to: "A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future."

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a weather and climate blog, but I'm struck how a climate activist like Thunberg can make so  many mostly middled aged and old white men so nervous.

Quartz earlier this year noticed this, too. 

Says Quartz:

"In Australia, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has called Thunberg "freakishy influential...with many mental disorders.  Sky News commentator Chris Kenny Described her as a "hysterical teenager." who needs to be cared for."

She's also been called a "mentally ill Swedish child," unstable and a "millenarian weirdo" who needs a spanking."  

Greta Thunberg took Trump's mocking words toward her
Thursday by changing her Twitter bio page in a way that
threw Trump's words right back at him. 

All this over some teenager from Sweden who is outspoken about climate change, albeit one who managed to create a global platform for herself.

Conservatives have long railed against climate change activists. Just ask Michael Mann, an atmospheric science professor at Penn State and an outspoken advocate against climate change.

He's used to political and person attacks though he certainly doesn't like it

I suspect Thunberg is a threat to male conservatives because 1. She's a girl. 2. She won't shut up like "good girls" are supposed to do.

Instead, she claps back, as we saw with her Twitter war with Trump today.

Thunberg is also a sympathetic person, a youngster who has made herself into a poster child for how climate change will affect future generations.  It's a "think of the children!" argument, one that skeptics of climate change really don't like.

Conversely, Thunberg is lionized by climate change activists, because of her poster child status.  The following isn't meant as a diss: Every movement, every argument really needs a succinct advertising symbol to get their point across.

I also don't mean to belittle Thunberg at all for being a poster child or symbol.  She created this, and it takes a lot of brain power and talent to pull this off. She also doesn't let the incessant criticism get to her, which is extremely hard, let along a teenager to do.

She has inspired millions of youth to take up activism with the climate change cause. It's usually the youth, and often women, who lead the charge when change is needed. Thunberg understands this, and  has used this understanding to great effect.

As a side note, Thunberg has Asperger's, which maybe doesn't help her interact well with some people. However, she says helps her focus on the task at hand and helps her deflect criticism. Which is probably part of the reason she has accomplished so much at such a young age in the climate change battles.

Some on social media have taken to quoting Shakespeare regarding Thunberg: "Although she be but little, she is fierce."

Fierce is a great word to describe Thunberg. She'll tell it to your face, that's for sure.  At her UN speech back in September, she thundered to world leaders,  "We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth."

It's hard to say whether climate change is as existential a threat as Thunberg makes it out to be, but there's no question it's a biggie.  Over the next decades and centuries, it will cause countless deaths, cost us all fortune upon fortune, promote suffering and wreck the enviroment throughout much of the world if something isn't done.

Given that climate change is such a worldwide threat, and given that politicians and world leaders have largely given the crisis a pass so far, Thunberg has succeeded perhaps more than anyone else on Earth in getting us talking about the issue.

After all, you can't laugh at today's lame attempts by Trump to insult Thunberg without at least mentioning climate change. '

Maybe for that reason alone, Time made a wise choice by declaring Thunberg the 2019 Person of the Year.

Snow Squalls Threaten Vermont This Evening

A snow squall last winter reduces visibility to a few hundred feet
last winter in St. Albans, Vermont. Similar conditions might
happen in northern Vermont this evening as there is a risk of
snow squalls.  These will make the roads dangerous 

Just a quick Wednesday evening alert: Snow squalls are bearing down on Vermont, especially the north.

Things are aligning pretty well for snow squalls this evening, any of which can produce brief whiteout conditions, and rapidly icing roads.  Which of course is a perfect recipe for pileups and crashes on Vermont roads later on.

As of 4:20 p.m., a snow squall warning was already in effect for the northwestern Adirondacks, as a dangerous snow squall moved into that region.

The National Weather Service in South Burlington warned of potentially life threatening travel in the path of the snow squall.

Here's what's going on:  West to southwest winds have been producing narrow bands of lake effect snow off of lakes Ontario and Erie.  A cold front is moving into this mess, and picking up the moisture and the snow from these bands.

The cold front is providing lift in the atmosphere, which helps produce and maintain precipitation.  With this situation, you end up with relatively narrow lines of intense snow. These are the kinds of things that are especially dangerous on the roads.

In one second, everything's fine: Visibility is good and the road is clear. The next minute, you can't see anything through your windshield and everything is iced up.  This is a great recipe for car crashes.

Those bands of snow that are producing the New York snow squall warnings are heading east, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if we get some snow squall warnings in northern Vermont.

Snow squall warnings are much like severe thunderstorm warnings in the summer. They cover a few counties at a time at most, and warn of a short period, usually lasting under an hour, of severe weather conditions.

If you hear a snow squall warning for your area, postpone travel until well after it has gone by. Also, if you are still at work, wait until well after it goes by and the state salt shakers and plows can get out there and clear the roads.

It usually doesn't snow much after a snow squall has passed, so visibility will greatly improve too one the squall goes by.

The snow squalls that were in New York last this afternoon might become a bit more disorganized when the come into Vermont. That means they will probably be hit and miss, again, much like summer thunderstorms.

None of the squalls will dump much snow, an inch or two at most, but they will be dangerous as they pass through.  The biggest threat for these snow squalls will be between 5 and 9 p.m. this evening, with the earlier times in northwestern Vermont and the later times toward the Northeast Kingdom.

Bigger Wildfires Making Air Pollution Worse. Latest Victim: Sydney, Australia

In this image from CNN, the famed Sydney Opera House is barely
visible amid clouds of choking wildfire smoke in the city this week.

Today, here in Vermont, we will be treated to northwest breezes that will pump in chilly but very clean and fresh air from central Canada.

We're lucky, especially if you compare us to, say Sydney, Australia in recent days.

Destructive and very, very big wildfires continue to burn in Australia, and that will continue through their summer, as it appears now.

Some of the big fires are near Sydney, and smoke from those fires is choking this iconic Australian city in a thick, dangerous haze.  In some parts of the city, pollution levels were five times higher than the level considered hazardous, says the Sydney Morning Herald.

That newspaper also reported that there were 150 ambulance calls Monday for people with breathing problems, ferry service was shut down due to poor visibility, and outdoor venues such as swimming pools were closed because the city didn't want people exercising in the pollution.

Firefighters were responding to four times the usual number of false alarms because the smoke was so thick it was seeping into buildings and triggering smoke alarms, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. 

It's early in the summer fire season in Australia and already more than 720 homes have been lost. Officials are warning of exponentially greater losses as the fires chew their way into more populated areas later this summer.

And most of that time, this choking, dangerous smog from the fires will linger over some Australian cities, like Sydney.

This is not a problem limited to Australia. It's a world-wide issue

According to Outside, the bigger wildfires are starting to erase the big gains the United States has made since the 1970s.

There are all kinds of laws and improved emission systems for all kind of vehicles, homes, factories, buildings - what have you. Cities that were routinely smoggy in the 1960s and 1970s routinely have clean air.

However, the wildfires, now getting bigger, hotter, more long lasting and numerous in large part due to climate change, are spewing huge amounts of particulates and other pollution into the atmosphere.

During the worst of the wildfires, weather patterns and winds move the smoke and pollutants into big cities and small towns often hundreds of miles distant from the fires, leading to dangerous spikes in bad air quality.

San Francisco was shrouded in serious haze back in October. Other western North American cities, like Salt Lake City, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, have had very serious smoke attacks from wildfires in recent years.

These outbreaks of thick haze are dangerous for everybody, causing lung damage and cardiovascular injury.  People who already have health issues could be hospitalized, or even die. And it's going to get worse.

Says Outside:

"While the U.S. has done a lot to limite particulate matter from burning fossil fuels, the country is still spewing a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which is speeding climate change. That, in turn make wildfires more severe."

To be Captain Obvious here, more severe wildfires mean a lot more smoke pumping into the atmosphere and often traveling long distances.

Don't think for a minute we Vermonters are immune from this wildfire pollution.  You know those fresh, clean northwest breezes I referred to at the top of this post?

Those northwest breezes are not necessarily so fresh in the summer and early autumn. There's been an uptick in wildfires in the northern forests of Canada and even up in the Arctic.  Some of that smoke blows down into the Green Mountain State.

I'm not sure on the statistics, but my perception is certainly that we've had more smoky, hazy and icky summer and early autumn days due to those fires hundreds or even thousands of miles to our north and west.

Wildfire smoke is not just an immediate danger to Sydney, Australia, It appears it will be an increasing threat to all of us.

Your Yearly (Scary) Reminder Not To Be An Idiot On Snowy Highways

Aftermath of that big highway pileup in Iowa Monday. Photo
via the Des Moines Register

We get these videos every winter. A snowy and icy Interstate highway.  A minor accident ahead causes people to brake.

But some people are distracting. Others, who have four wheel drive, think that allows them to stop on a dime.  Still others are panicking, and stopping right in the path of the cars and trucks behind them.

The inevitable big pileup then happens.

Such was the case yesterday, as you can see in the video at the bottom of this post from television station KCCI.  Interstate 80 was snow covered and slick.  A minor accident happened. Then, boom! Everybody piles into each other.

The Des Moines Register reports that luckily, only one person suffered serious injuries in the 50-vehicle pileup near Altoona, Iowa, which is east of Des Moines.

One side note:  Why do big tractor trailers go so fast in the snow?  I've regularly been nearly forced off the road by truckers blasting by me at top speeds on Interstate 89 in Vermont during icy snowstorms.

My cynical side says they stir up so much blowing snow that they know they won't be caught if they cause a crash. Who cares if somebody dies?  They have a schedule to make!  It might not be precisely the truck drivers' fault.

Most of them probably do care if they kill someone in a icy highway crash. But the trucking companies put pressure on the drivers to adhere to schedules, no matter what. It's some of the trucking companies, who believe the bottom line is much more important than peoples' lives. That's not all the trucking firms, but some of them.

Notice how many tractor trailers were involved in the crash you see in the video below.  This wasn't the fault of all of 'em, but perhaps some of them.

It's certainly not just the truck drivers.  A lot of people ignore this, but you need to greatly increase the distance between you and the car in front of you in case you have to hit the brakes. Granted, this is hard to do, because when I try this, somebody inevitably passes me and then cuts in front of my truck just inches from my headlights. But you have to try, I guess.

This should be obvious, but slow the hell down!  And no, your four wheel drive vehicle will NOT enable you to stop in a shorter distance without skidding.  Four wheel drive is good for traction, but it does not give you a license to speed.

It seems like most people don't understand this. I drive a four-wheel drive pickup truck, and I certainly get the evil eye from speed demon pickup drivers because I'm driving so "slowly" on the ice.

What should you do if you're caught up in a pileup?  Accuweather says at least initially, you should stay in your car, even as more collisions are happening around you.  At least your car, or the remains of it, provide some structure to protect you for oncoming cars and trucks. That's better than getting run over or smooshed when you're getting out of your car.

Accuweather says once things calm down a bit, you can get out, but then stand behind a guardrail or tree.  If you're not hurt call 911 and see if anybody else needs help.

It was warm in Vermont this morning, but a cold front is on our doorstep. That means temperatures will rapidly fall this afternoon and evening. Icy patches will develop on the roads. Will you be the cause of the next pileup when this happens? Don't be that person.

Here's footage of the Iowa pileup on Monday:

Vermont School Official's Very Bieber Snow Day Announcement

Springfield, Vermont Assistant School Superintendent David Cohn
announces last Monday's snow day in the way Justin Bieber would.

Last Monday, it snowed pretty hard in southern Vermont.

It was enough for schools in many towns, including Springfield, to declare a snow day.

Joining a fad among school officials getting creative with snow day announcement, Springfield Assistant School Superintendent David Cohn announced the school closing in a very Bieberesque fashion.

To the tune of Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself," Cohn put out a video singing the fact that schools were closed this past Monday.  He just re-jiggered Bieber's lyrics to fit the snow announcement

Cohn said he is a Bieber fan, and Cohn also does have a good voice, so it worked.

Television station WPTZ reports the reviews are great:

" My mom showed it to me when I got up.......I thought it was really good. It was pretty funny," fifth grader Bella Guglielmo said.

"It's actually really cool. He had a talent," said Gavin Heath, another fifth grader in Springfield. Even the elemetary school's music teacher declared himself impressed.

It's only the beginning of winter, and I've seen Vermont school snow days as late as April, so Cohn better have new songs lined up for future snow dates.

Here's the video:

Stormy Winter (Continued) San Francisco Suffers Flood (Also Vermont Wind Update)

Flooding in San Francisco Saturday. Photo by Robert Evans

Winters tend to be stormy in the United States, and San Francisco tends to be wet but San Francisco really got it yesterday.

The rain came so fast and so hard that several neighborhoods flooded. Several houses suffered quite a bit of flood damage in the city's West Portal neighborhood.  There were several mudslides, and the wet soil prompted at least one  large tree to all on a house.

San Francisco got about an inch of rain, which isn't really that big a deal for coastal California in the winter.

However, about three quarters of an inch of it came within an hour, and all that water poured all at once down the city's hilly streets, collecting in the low spots, causing the flooding.  It usually doesn't rain quite that hard in San Francisco.

All good storms head east, and that's what this one is doing.  For the nation as a whole, this one won't be nearly as bad as the strongest ones we've had in the autumn and early winter. But the storm will cause its problems.

It is helping to drop yet more snow on the northern Plains and northern Great Lakes, which are parts of the country that have had a lot of snow so far this year.

The storm center is still far to Vermont's west, but it's working in tandem with that departing high pressure system to produce the rather strong and gusty winds today, especially in the Champlain Valley. It looks like it will stay windy well into Monday at least.

The storm's going by to our west, which means it's going to rain.  That'll be a change from this morning, which was the coldest so far this season. It was 5 above in Burlington, and as cold as 12 below in Island Pond, Vermont this morning.

The see-saw will continue. After the storm goes by, another cold snap, as chilly as the one we had overnight, is due here Wednesday, Thursday and into Friday morning before we start another warmup.

As the storm's cold front comes through New England, it might slow down for a time near the southern coast and into the Middle Atlantic states Wednesday morning. That might produce a few inches of snow in these areas.

Here in Vermont, there will only be light snow showers behind the storm, with little accumulation.

This storm will also cause strong winds, heavy rain and possible flooding in Atlantic Canada, too, by the way.

Here's a news clip of the San Francisco flooding:

Strong Winds To Prevent My Cleanup From Strong Winds

One of my back yard burn piles from two years ago.  I was
planning another tomorow, but strong winds might
prevent me from burning up the debris from, you guessed it,
strong winds from earlier this year.

The town of St. Albans, Vermont was nice enough to grant me a burn permit for  tomorrow so I can get rid of a lot of brush that has accumulated on my property.

Much if not most of those branches, trunks, twigs, leaves and whatnot are storm debris from the past year.

A lot of it is from that epic storm on November 1, which took down a whole tree on my property, and did other damage.

Here's the rub: It looks like my cleanup from past strong winds will be canceled by..........strong winds.

Winds in the Champlain Valley are expected to gust over 40 mph tomorrow.  With snow on the ground my brush pile wouldn't spread and cause a forest fire or anything like that, no matter how windy it gets.  But really. You don't want to try and manage a brush pile fire with that kind of wind.

Maybe some other time. We'll see how it goes.

Here's the reason for tomorrow's strong wind. A pretty strong high pressure system is coming in to clear our skies later today and give us a very chilly night tonight.  Many of us will get into the single digits.

That high departs to the east tomorrow.  Like I said, it's strong, and a pretty good sized storm system will press in from the west.

The squeeze play between the high pressure and the storminess will come over Vermont tomorrow afternoon and night, triggering those strong south winds.

The Champlain Valley will further squeeze the air flow between the Green and Adirondack mountains.  That means the wind will be especially strong there.  So instead of cleaning up my storm debris, a little bit might be added to it if winds go well above 40 mph in gusts, which they might do.'

The National Weather Service might issue a wind advisory for the Champlain Valley for tomorrow. It's possible we'll have a few downed limbs and power failures once again.

On the east side of the Green Mountains, the winds won't mix down into the deeper valleys. So when rain arrives late Sunday night, it'll take the form of freezing rain for awhile in some of those valleys.

We are in for a thaw with these south winds and the storm to our west.  That means temperatures will rise into the 40s Monday and stay there into Tuesday before it turns pretty cold again.
'
The thin snow cover in the valleys will disappear for awhile with this rainy thaw, but you do tend to get those this time of year.  For the mountains, this thaw will make the quality of the snow take a hit at the ski areas, but grooming and snow making will fix it as we get colder than normal again by the middle of next week.

Also, for those of you who say I should grind up the wood instead of burning it and releasing carbon dioxide and other stuff into the air, you have a point.  Problem is, there's such a great volume of stuff that I have neither the time or the money to do it.  The larger tree trunks are being made into wood chips by a tree service we have hired.  I'm burning up the multitudes of smaller sized branches that have accumulated.

Not a perfect solution, but so be it.