What has nature wrought?
We have been in the 30s dipping a point below and a point above in some fluctuating stream of ridiculous cold that none of us are prepared to deal with – none of us. I don’t care if you are one of those Yankee types who LOVE the cold and HATE the heat – if you live in New Orleans this is a crisis. My house temperature has hovered at 56 degrees for two days running. That’s after spending $500 to make sure the brand new heater was working correctly.
Instead I have arctic jet streams shooting up through the floorboards and windows that feel like the freezer door is open. My electricity bill for last month was double its norm.
A friend said he likes cold but the truth is we live in the equivalent of grass huts here and that’s definitely what it feels like but more importantly here is what is interesting about this entire fiasco – my mind does not work in the cold. I can’t clean my house, I can’t write, I can’t work, and I certainly find it hard to be loving and kind.
John Battelle recently wrote his Media predictions for this year and number one was:
1. 2014 is the year climate change goes from a political debate to a global force for unification and immediate action. It will be seen as the year the Internet adopted the planet as its cause.
If this winter is any indication of global warming, we all better start thinking about it. We can endure floods, hurricanes, and hell on earth heat, but cold, no we can’t do cold. We would need to be in houses built out of brick and cinder block but then they would not withstand floods and squalls and humid heat – so we would all have to move somewhere else and there is – really – no where else to go.
I tried to get to the grocery in Metairie today and the I-10 was blocked off with patrol cars – bridges are closed – we are shut in and shut down.
So my musings after being confined to my house for two days with an almost five year old who has been bouncing off the very cold paper thin walls is that I know why bears hibernate – I know why people just tune out and stay in and don’t venture out in the winter – I know now that this is no way to live.
Cold is for polar bears and penguins but not for real people.
