It is snowing this morning, lightly. We had about three inches of wet snow overnight. Indeed, the Twin Ports area has had higher than usual snowfall over this winter season, although it has spread out over many small precipitation events. There is a truism in Duluth that, as hard as its brutal frigid winter temperatures, short spring-summer-fall seasons, and occasional blizzards are to take, if you are fortunate enough to live under a warm roof, you can stay "safe" -- unlike in tornado-, hurricane-, and wildfire-prone parts of the country. Your house won't blow away, float away, or burn. But what's happening in the mountains of California is a reminder that blizzards aren't always safe, or survivable. Entire communities are snowed in, and people are stuck in their homes, running out of food and medicine. I've experienced three three-foot (plus or minus) snowfalls, and it takes many days for a community to dig out from that. Trying to conceive of four-, five-, six-foot snowfalls is almost impossible. I can imagine looking out the window to a wall of snow, but it is a terrifying thought. It must be like being buried alive. Those who survive will have had a shamanic experience, whether they think of it that way or not. People without power and/or buried in snow -- in the very state that has birthed so many technologies that require power -- are effectively (albeit temporarily) thrown back hundreds of years to the time before these technologies.
It's going to be interesting to see how long it takes for average people (not climate scientists) to see the connection between increasing numbers of extreme events and human activities. As "states of emergency" are called more and more frequently, when will we understand that we are the emergency? Unfortunately, when that does happen, many will be tempted to fall into a well of self-hatred, and the hatred of other humans, but we do not have time for either of those reactions. The path forward is to start now to work with Nature, and to respect Her. To understand our oneness with Her. These storms are not "just snow". They are Nature's way of begging us to see Her, align with Her, and take planet Earth's needs into consideration in everything we do, make, invent or create going forward.
