a reflection of current and past weather and how this can prepare you

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A Reflection of current and past weather and how this can prepare you 12.29.2012



Table of Contents

1. January 12. The first nor'easter of 2011. Thoughts from within nature's wallop.2. 4:15 a.m., 14.7 degrees Fahrenheit, light snow falling.3. 5:19 a.m., 40 degrees Farenheit, warming winds.4. Freshet. 3: 59 a.m. Eastern time. 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Wind SW at 11 mph. Humidity 90%.May 24, 2011.5. 'The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind.' Waiting for Hurricane Irene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 28, 2011.6. O Little Town... Christmas comes to Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 25, 2011. 12:54 a.m.20 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds W-NW 8 miles per hour.7. First snow comes to Cambridge, February 12, 2012, a story of life's unpredictable savor and joys.8. 'The winds of change' blow over Africa -- again. This time from the East. Is anybody payingattention to this world-altering trend?

9. 'Hear how the wind begins to whisper. Soon it's gonna rain. I can tell.'



January 12. The first nor'easter of 2011. Thoughts fromwithin nature's wallop.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

I am writing to you today from inside one of nature's bona fide wonders: a good old New Englandnor'easter. I hadn't planned to comment on this blizzard; I tend to ignore them whenever possible.

New Englanders are used to them. But I was awakened this morning by the snow insistentlythumping my window, demanding my attention, insisting, lordly in its sway that I gaze out andmake my obeisance to awe and wonder.

And so I shall.

First, the facts.

What is snow anyway?

Millions of people, their lives intertwined with this seasonal commodity which ebbs and flows,would, when asked... hem and haw, embarrassed by their ignorance of something so powerful, soregularly omnipresent, so, well, obvious. "I'm not really sure," they'd say -- myself among 'em -- "I just know it when I see it."

The Farmer's Almanac to the rescue.

My dictionary says snow is ice crystal flakes: water vapor in the atmosphere that has frozen into icecrystals and falls to the ground in the form of flakes. This is, well, adequate, good enough; it's better to seek out the experts at the Farmer's Almanac (published first by Benjamin Franklin in 1732. )Snow, somehow, seems more real in the country, its sinews more apparent, its destructive power themore on view and genuinely regarded, with picturesque Currier and Ives panoramas at every glance. No wonder America loves these images of its earliest and most enchanting self, first published in1813, when a view was verily a fine prospect indeed.

Here's what the Farmer's Almanac says,

"Snow is formed from water vapors in the cold clouds that have condensed into ice crystals. Icecrystals fasten onto a dust speck. One crystal attaches to another forming a snowflake. Once thesnowflake is heavy enough, it falls from the cloud. A snowflake is either a single ice crystal or manycrystals.The size of a snowflake is determined by how many ice crystals join together.The tops of clouds must be below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0 degrees Celsius in order for snowfall tooccur.Snow can fall from any layered cloud that is cold enough."

"Snow’s effect on the ground."

" Snow accumulated on the ground helps keep bulbs and plant roots (beneath the ground) fromfreezing in frigid weather.As soft snowflakes pile on top of one another, pockets of air are left between them. This air helps protect seeds, bulbs and roots from freezing beneath the soil inwinter.In spring when the snow begins to melt, some snow soaks into the earth to water the soil,while other melted snow replenishes streams, lakes and rivers."

Now, that's a definition to be proud of. And I bet you, like me, hardly knew a whit of this. Still, it isgood to know the brave little crocuses already peeping shoots above the ground will not be harmed.They are the vanguard of spring, and they cheer us every time they ascend to the sun and their brief tenure as bits of joy in the mud.

5:55 am Eastern

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It is not quite six a.m. now and the hegemony of snow is absolute. Or almost so. The snow plows arealready at their work; their promise of relief and liberty at hand. Their noise must be fearsome for,snug and warm, I hear them as they go about their work. They bear names like Ariens, Toro,Craftsman, Husqvarna, Troy-Bilt, MTD Yard Machines, and Honda. You can tell as well as I thatmany of these are foreign names, and so with every flake, American money leaks to foreign shores.

The snow plows are manned by happy crews of determined folk who relish their work. Soon, theywill be found in taverns citywide sharing brews and tales of the Big One which will lose nothing inthe telling. They are proud of the work which pulls them from snug beds into the Big Machineswhose power, growing now, will soon efface that of snow itself. Commuters who come later,grumbling, will complain about where the fruit of these machines has been left.

New England's poets knew their snow

John Greenleaf Whittier (born 1807) wrote a best-seller in 1866 entitled Snowbound: A Winter Idyl.Easy to understand, its simple imagery and paean to nature do not satisfy our jaded tastes and so,sadly, this idyllic pastoral goes unread today.

Sadder still is the fate of "The Cross of Snow" (1879) by my near neighbor on Brattle Street, HenryWadsworth Longfellow. His poem, gut wrenching, is not so much about the snow itself as about thesnow covering the grave of his long-dead, fervently adored wife. I have been in the room she died,where there is love and pain, producing reflections almost too poignant to be written:

"In the long, sleepless watches of the night ,A gentle face--the face of one long dead-- Looks at mefrom the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room shedied, and soul more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose; nor can in books be read The legend of a life more benedight. There is a mountain in the distant West That,sun-defying, in its deep ravines Displays a cross of snow upon its side. Such is the cross I wear uponmy breast These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes And seasons, changeless since theday she died."

But this report must not end on such a note of mourning, no matter how haunting and elegiac. Thuswe end instead with the sage of Concord, Massachusetts, Ralph Waldo Emerson who in "The SnowStorm" (published 1841) said this:

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seemsnowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils thefarm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friendsshut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of Storm." *** I am now in that tumultuous privacy of Storm, where outside the elements contend,heavy, portentous, disruptive ephemeral, though they do not know it. Soon this will pass."







4:15 a.m., 14.7 degrees Fahrenheit, light snow falling.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

I awoke this morning to find as Samuel Taylor Coleridge did in 1798 all had been, o'er night,transformed. This great poet wrote ("Frost at Midnight"):

"The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud -- and

hark, again! loud as before."

There was no owlet crying outside my aerie, but I could hear the scurrying squirrels who, glad for the heat in the rafters, made merrie at this unseasonable hour, oblivious to my disapproval.

I peered out the window, or attempted to. The Frost had well and truly come, exhibiting itsmeticulous work. No longer glass alone, my windows are etched with a brilliant mosaic of pristinesilvered white, more intricate its pattern than any lace made by expert Belgian hands.

I was the sole denizen of a crystalled box, the wintered land wore hoar frost... and I was its closeobserver, transfixed by such a stunning surprise, all mine, a thing of beauty alluring, sure of myattention and regard.

The Frost had, indeed, performed its "secret ministry."

I checked the temperature... 14.7 degrees Fahrenheit... unseasonable... the kind of cold for which theword "cold" falls short, inadequate to the task of accurate description of an event which affects all but few scrutinize or pause to consider.

How had my windows been turned into frost-etched images fit for the palace of a winter king? Theseare the true Old Masters.

To begin at the beginning, what is frost?

My dictionary says that frost is a deposit of minute ice crystals formed when water vapor condensesat a temperature below freezing.

This tepid definition ill suits something as beautiful as the stunning surface before me... this joyengendering gift of the cold cries out for better words, a clearer picture of its radiance. It is too earlyfor such words to come from me... but they, like the rising temperature, will come.

5:10 am

But if the effect of frost etched on my windows is poetry, the means by which this poem came to beis...prose... and assaults my pocketbook and frugal mien.

The reason there is frost on my windows is prosaic and alarming; it is because my house is losing

heat, probably because the windows are single glazed.

This, a good contractor might assure me, could be taken care of by making a frame that fits insidemy window frame and then stretching plastic over it to double glaze my windows.

The dead air space in between the layers will stop heat from leaking to the outside of my home andkeep the heat in. Then the windows will not be so cold... and the heat won't escape.

This practical solution, beloved of the Yankee mind hereabouts, saves money... and ends any prospect of frost, its beauty, evocations and the delight in a marvel etched in ice for my delectationand happiness.







I think I shall leave the windows single glazed. And so go out to see the universe transformed.

5:20 a.m.

This all-pervasive cold, helped to its ascendancy by the deep chill of the nearby Atlantic, winter bound, turns all of us into friends... and survivors.

People who in temperate days make clear their disinclination to know you, much less even the mostsignificant of your opinions, on days like this, enlivened by frost, seek out any and all wintry

travelers and utter such insights as

"Cold, isn't it!"

"Wow, this is the coldest day yet!"

"Cold enough for you?"

These unadorned sentiments make us remember that we are all traveling together, and are glad, fromtime to time, to recall... and reach out. We feel better for doing so, though of course we do not wantto make a habit of such welcomes. There is, after all, no telling where that might lead...

5:31 a.m.

I have left my sheltered perch, snug despite the single glaze, and now without to see first-hand whatfrost has wrought. Including those who, uncomfortably, watched its advent and quick possession:the homeless, with nothing, experience nature's all... often, in seasons such as these, unto death itself,more silent than the frost.

Hypothermia is the enemy here, and its presence is noted. It is primarily an urban problem; cannier country folk are too smart and seasoned to fall victim to this malady of negligence. It is a conditionafflicting mostly men, homeless, drug and alcohol addicted, mentally ill. Nonwhites over 65(victims ready made) are four times as likely to succumb as whites, a statistic that comes alive as Ienter Harvard Square and see those who chose to mark frost's advent by turning down the kindly

meant offers of shelter from good Samaritans.The truth is, despite pressing invitations from the well-meaning, these people, mostly men, declinethe bed and the appalling sight of so many like themselves; it is too real a reminder of where theystarted... and where they have ended up. Of 60 homeless people offered last night a bed and relativecomforts,only 2 accepted. Their freedom comes at cost to the Samaritans, for they could easilyoversee the human flotsam within the shelter; now they must check and check again throughout thenight. So freedom for one, becomes extra labor for others.

As for the rest, they chose freedom... to live, and to die, their own ways. For make no mistake, suchmen, falling too soon and unprepared to sleep, prove what frost and cold can do... for they arekillers, too, ready, certain, deadly... and always, beautiful.

6:11 a.m.

It is time now for me to return home, cheered by the thought that I have, this frosty day, seen thingsof value and importance; I have seen things and learned what scurrying neighbors will today miss, asitems too common to be regarded, much less truly seen.

My wintry poets stand ready at my return.

There's Shakespeare, from "As You Like It."

Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude. Thy tooth is not so







keen, Although thy breath be rude.

Then Thomas Campion's "Now Winter Nights Enlarge" (1617).

"Winter: A Dirge, Robert Burns, 1781.

Winter Heavens" George Meredith, 1888.

"Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive Leap off the rim of earth across the dome."

Then always and forever...

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", Robert Frost, 1923.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.'

***

And so do I.







5:19 a.m., 40 degrees Farenheit, warming winds.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

A thing of some significance happened overnight: the warming winds came well accompanied bygreat thundered mayhem and its chorus of audacious, startling colors. Cacophonous, they woke meup, fast, disorienting.

Yes, the winds came, and the snow which this year of grace hit monumental, head-scratching proportions was gone as if so many geese worried by a dog, now present, now gone.

The countryside rejoiced for it has yearned so for the warming winds and their promise of better daysto come.

Because these winds so cause the people to rejoice, what with present benefits and happycontemplations of the warm pleasure days, now no longer merely rumored but en route... the verygods have decreed an entry more than suitable, monumental, the stuff of awe and nature's gaudytouch. . And so these winds never sojourn alone but always with those lavish supporters, stentorianthunder paired with the wild magnificence of swift lighting.

It was a thrill to lay in bed, alert and warm, to hear thunder and lighting and to know bone deep thatwith them came the real harbinger of spring, the warming winds. It was a release from brutal winter and its frigid regime... and lights went on in most every house as the denizens more than heard thenews felt the warming winds... intelligence which made desponding nervous folk take heart, shakeeach other's hands, and kiss a passer by... and not regretting, proper like... the gesture as perfectlyappropriate and rightly given.

Ah, yes, these winds, surprising joy their felicitous legacy.

6:04 a.m.

It is still quite dark this February day... but it is worth standing silent at the window, being

forthrightly told... "Stand, reverencing mortal being, for we are the eternalities gracing you. If youvalue the warming winds, honor us as well as they do."

What is wind anyway?

All people worldwide live surrounded by, threatened by, helped by things they know little or evenabsolutely nothing about.

Wind is such a subject. We all know about wind, and we have felt, rather than thought about, itsnature and substance. Wind is wind. It was here before I was and will be here long after I have gone,a symbol of the transience of all, particularly me. What is wind anyway?...

Wind is 1) moving air across the surface of the planet or through the atmosphere at a speed fastenough to be noticed; 2) moving air, especially a natural and perceptible movement of air parallel toor along the ground.

This serviceable definition instructs but does not satisfy. For that we must go to writers, for it is their task to describe feelingly an invisible movement, sometimes beneficial, sometimes destructive,always changing. Writers, driven to accepting challenges, took up this one con brio.

Christina Rossetti (d. 1894) , a "stunner" of the Pre-Raphaelites, scrutinized winds well, warmingand otherwise.

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing







through.

Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.

Here are words more descriptive of this ever moving presence now here, now there, now seeminggone, mischievous recurring. No dictionary can compete with words so evocative and complete.

H.R.R. Tolkien (d. 1973) in his "Lament for Boromir" wrote this:

Ask of the North Wind news of them the North Wind sends to me!' 'O Boromir! Beyond the gate theseaward road runs south, But you came not with the wailing gulls from the grey sea's mouth.

Tolkien, with his fixation on the obsequies and ceremonies surrounding dead heroes of youth andstalwart demeanor too early curtailed, turns one of the winds into a messenger, an unmistakablelament, with overtones of Rams horns and Gotterdammerumg, very much in the Master's archaiclexicon.

I'd best return to the Pre-Raphaelites. They, in their amplitude, are as fantastical as Tolkien.However, while death stalks them, too, their obsequies are of beauty lost forever soon and ruby lipsnow still, unkissed into the eternal. Morbid, these are yet more blissful and festive than Tolkien's

hauntings.

Here are more windy words, a poem by William Morris (d. 1896), the British writer beloved byPre-Raphaelites:

Ah! no, no, it is nothing, surely nothing at all, Only the wild-going wind round by the garden-wall,For the dawn just now is breaking, the wind beginning to fall.

_Wind, wind! thou art sad, art thou kind? Wind, wind, unhappy! thou art blind, Yet still thouwanderest the lily-seed to find._

So I will sit, and think and think of the days gone by, Never moving my chair for fear the dogs

should cry, Making no noise at all while the flambeau burns awry.***

Morris' effusion, like Morris himself, is overdone, overwrought, always, unhappily a woman in thecase. Indeed, many have compared the wind to la donna mobile... Morris knew. He had waited whileshe eluded him; her capers for others, not for him.

7:38 a.m. I wish to see the land different today, and so go out.

The sun is up, the snow is gone, the warming winds, too, all gone, merely leaving muds of everykind, the apt symbol of every day reality. Untouched by magic, the housewife's busy broom sweepsout the bits of land moving too, but only on the feet of men. "Henry," she says, "wipe your feet before you come in!" Women know this, early, and many other prosy things with which theymaintain this orb. Not men. They overlook.

Yes, the romance of the warming winds is gone, but they have surely kissed this earth and from itnow waking spring arises. Thus, winds frequent but so little known: We thank you for your goodservice... your exuberant, ostentatious rites. Good voyage to you... as millions worldwide wait for you, impatient, restive, expectant, as they have always been.







Freshet. 3: 59 a.m. Eastern time. 65 degrees Fahrenheit.Wind SW at 11 mph. Humidity 90%. May 24, 2011.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

I was scheduled to write quite a different thing today from this, but when the shutters blew in andsnapped against the glass with cannot-be-denied insistence, making me at once startled and alert, I

knew another force, call it Nature, call it Aeolus, Greek ruler of the winds; call it anything you careto... but certainly, a greater force than I was demanding, loudly too, my complete attention. I gave it.

The air was pregnant with liquidity; the rain had pelted in the night, the ground now etched with theevidence of freshets as they danced to the sea, happy for their journey, kissing the land to bring forththe luxuries of fruit and flowers; the necessities of grain and every nutrient.

Even the least observant could tell, there was something lush about the air and its caresses, somehowreminding one of some tropical destination so fetching on fly blown papers in travel agencies... adestination you save to visit then find deeply disappointing upon going, though you'd die than ever admit it. (And never to those who have hung upon your not quite honest tales.)

The air was thick, wet, heavy... not at all oppressive, completely comforting. You feel somehoweven the most rigid task master ever conceived would (you are sure) pardon the venal sin of layingabed this day, such sloth spurring no guilt at all but pronounced self-satisfaction that you have livedto feel such a day as this, and at an early hour, too.

Freshet, you think well of yourself for remembering this word, so apt, moribund now, the carelesswork of generations wanting more and more communication, but killing the words that make it all possible.

Freshet. You were 16 or 17 the year freshet ceased to be a factoid unknown to you one minute and became instead the embodiment of good habits and certain success, bet on it.

Flash cardsPrestigious colleges were competitive then... but not as sharply so as now. Some sage counselor (perhaps even me) had recommended improving vocabulary (so very pertinent) by copying wordsfrom the dictionary and becoming a presence in constant motion and cogitation, thus

(flash card side 1) freshet, n.

(flash card side 2) rush of fresh water flowing into the sea.

New words added, new words mastered, and a wonderful way to torment parents and relations, oneirritating but beyond punishment.

"Jeffrey, take out the garbage!"

But the-best-mother-in-the world quickly learned the inevitable response.

"Mom, I can't now. I'm working on my flash cards."

It was unanswerable... and one took pride in one's skill, for developing another useful talent, sure tocome in handy with the she-who-must-be-obeyed certain to make her inevitable appearance in duecourse.

My parents never captured and reduced this irksome citadel, though on one memorable day, thingsreached a Crisis... and in front of Dwight David Eisenshower, too, his high and mighty duties at an







end, shedding his celebrity and sharing his elder statesman years as grand marshal of a vastlyhonored Tournament of Roses, one new year's day.

Eisenhower brought his international renown and grandfatherly assurances. I brought my flashcards. The forces were nicely matched.

My father, a serving sailor in World War II, venerated Eisenhower (as who did not at that day'ssplendid Rose Parade?) as the leader of freedom's army, our bulwark for goodness, the AmericanWay, and the values and virtues of the great heartland of the nation where "I like Ike" was notmerely a motto but an irrefutable mantra.

My father had moved mountains to ensure that his family sat so close to the former president wecould see, quite clearly too, every move he made; had we been lip readers not a single word heuttered would have gone unknown. Alas, we did not have that skill.

Soon, however, it was time to turn our attention from the casual conversation of a legend to the day'struly important business, the football game. But I never thought that sport or any sport, no matter how agilely played, nearly as exciting as a single word of our word-blessed language... for a football player may move a ball... but a single word can move the world and the path of humanity.

Now as the teams kicked, ran, shouted, huddled, and caressed each other every now and again, I satimmersed in my flash cards, scarcely looking up. I think this day I brought the Latin flash cards.These were store bought, unlike the English language cards; I had several other sets for differentsubject areas, too. Eisenhower, the great magistrate of a great republic, surely would understand my priorities; preferring stern duty over mere recreation. Thus, I had no difficulty rationalizing mychoice.

After all (though I didn't know it then), Eisenhower himself had given up the great love of his lifeand the divorce from Mamie, because his friend and commander General George Marshall remindedhim in no uncertain terms of where his duty lay and the heavy price the republic would pay losinghim, as it would should he choose love. Perhaps the general was reminded of his chere amie thatday. It might easily happen...

In any event, I soon became aware that my football crazed father was casting glances my way packed with aspersions and the promise of Serious Words, even a Lecture. I knew the harbinger'ssigns...

And soon came the preliminary salvo, along these lines etched in memory:

"Jeffrey Ladd...!" The exasperated tone.

Sotto voce to the stranger sitting next to him, "my son the intellectual..." Eyes skyward, touch of theatrics.

And then, not right away perhaps but as sure as sun, "Jeffrey, I am NEVER going to take you to afootball game again."

And so he delivered the coup de grace... that made me grateful then, and laugh today; to be deprivedfor life of a thing both onerous and dull, the better to arrange my legions of words, to play the mostinteresting game of all, the one you play within the world without walls, your own head.

But while I exulted then, for I was free! Free! I little knew or comprehended the pain this gave myfather or the fact he thought such sentence meaningful, when I did not. The sad fact is, getting myway through disappointing my father cut one avenue producing shared experiences... and I regretthis now as only an adult of some wisdom and insight can... and hardly an adolescent since the dawnof creation is equipped to handle.







It all came pouring out early this morning at the moment when the night hangs on for dear life because it knows so well its time is nigh... and that this night is about to be gone forever, replaced bya new day, fresh-as-paint, not content to wait a moment; pushing the old aside without compunctionor regret.

One strong breeze so laden with moisture you could wring it out like a towel; one rap of the shutterson the glass... and the freshets of memory run strong and true to the immemorial sea, never stopping,always replenishing. Let them run as they will... and be thankful.







'The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer isblowin' in the wind.' Waiting for Hurricane Irene inCambridge, Massachusetts, August 28, 2011.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Whether it is because of the unsettling information we have received minute

by minute over the last few days; whether it is because of the ominous predictions of so manyknowledgeable authorities; whether it is because it is just 5:48 a.m. and it is still pitch black, themoment of the day when night fights its ouster and will not cede to the light, I cannot say... but thisis a moment of apprehension, disquiet...even dread.

This is the moment we remember the power of a Nature we so often forget and so regularly outrage.

Now this Nature has reminded us of where true power resides... and of what it means when we talk of an "act of God."

For now, this very minute, amongst the treasures and securities of my comfortable life, I await theadvent of the manifestation of unrelenting power, a force capable of disrupting this cherished life in

an instant, leaving me, and millions like me, bereft, shocked, lamenting.

This is the tale of an act of God, called Irene by mankind; this is the tale of one man in storm's path,waiting, waiting, every daily occupation and thought now set aside while we await the capricious judgement of this mighty storm.

We ask ourselves and carefully scan our multitude of information sources for answers to theseinsistent queries:

When will it hit?

Where will it hit?

How long will it punish us?

What will it take... what will it leave?

These are the questions of the hour... and we have only the fallible devices of challenged mankind toanswer them... and so "the answer is blowin' in the wind..." Thus I selected "Blowin' in the Wind" for today's background music. You can easily find it in any search engine. Find it now and listencarefully.

Written by Bob Dylan in 1962, it became the anthem of a restless generation... which wantedanswers... and got none. Now I want answers, too, and renewed securities and peace of mind.... Butnone but God Himself could reassure me at this moment when even the coolest hand of all cravesconfidence to be reinforced, restored.

6:25 a.m., first light.

From the window of my study I look out upon the usual early day scene. There is rain in the air...and a light breeze blows the still-green leaves, not yet touched by an autumn now just days away. Itis quiet now... no living soul to be seen. This is my world... and at this moment no man alive couldsay what its condition will be just hours away. But we know, in every fibre, that what is present nowwill somehow be different, great or small; storms, even as they weaken, make sure of that.

6:48 a.m.







Like millions I scan the news services, not so much for a history of this storm's destructiveness as for clues and prognostications of what my future holds in the hours ahead. Fallible though even thegreatest storm authorities can be, I nonetheless examine their predictions with care; my life, myfuture, perhaps my very existence on this planet is here foreshadowed. Whether the news beintoxicatingly good or the very worst it could be, I must know...

While scanning my sources, gleaning every fact, I note the condition of my dining room; my stormcommand center. There are crumbs on floor and table, this room with its historic paintings on thewall not as pristine and well ordered as usual.... and there's the open pizza box, a certain sign thatlast night's meal was eaten in a rush, gulped down while listening to the latest storm coverage.People facing grave disruption, even extinction do not concern themselves with dirty dishes andwayward crumbs. They have graver issues at hand than where crumbs have fallen and what to dowith last night's congealed remains. Normality is when these matters regain our notice with broomand dust pan at the ready. What seizes my attention now is battlefield intelligence from this fast-moving war zone.

9 of my fellow humans, quick and alive just hours ago, now dead. Irene has cost them everythingwhile robbing us of the necessary time and mental state essential for mourning. For now, the deadmust take care of the dead; the living have other priorities.

Item: Millions of people from first battered North Carolina north have "at this hour" (as only t.v.newscasters ever say) no electricity... It's loss drives home their vulnerability and submission to thestorm. To be without power is to lose the vital moorings of life. To lose power is to be removed atan instant from every essential service of the 21st century. We feel its loss keenly, for the loss of power is crippling, humbling, demoting us in an instant to the primitive realities of our ancestorswho lived with the reality that it is better to light just one little candle than curse the darkness. Doyou have your candle ready for just this moment? I do...

8:01 a.m.

The news reports are coming in thick and fast now as sleepy journalists file the day's first reports.

Outside the windows the trees now bend low before a wind not so gentle as before. The light of early Sunday morning is greyer now and obscured by the rain, now heavier, harder falling. Is this aworrisome portent of what we may expect as Irene moves toward us... or is it but the kind of stormthat irritates and inconveniences but does not disrupt or kill?

While I wonder, the great cities of the Eastern seaboard are shuttered, quiet, watchful; it's inhabitantschary, anxious, hopeful that they and their world will survive intact, this incident to be forgotten, notthe day of dread remembrance which may still be their fate. They cannot know if their roofs willhold, they cannot know if they will suffer and lose all; they cannot know if dear friends andneighbors will die. And they cannot know in these hours before impact if they will live... or benothing more than a statistic, dead, so brought to oblivion by Irene's thoughtless puissance.

Its winds now 115 miles per hour.

Its wingspan 500 miles.

Frothing the sea with waves of 7 feet.

And the most important statistic of all: 65,00,000 million people directly impacted, prisoners of aremorseless presence, disregarding the people of this land, their lives and occupations. Storms carenothing for these; their movements, their actions; in everything they do explicable only tothemselves and answerable to none.







8:30 a.m.

Darkness now covers the land, the day now awash in heavy rain from a darkening sky. Except for afew daredevils, impacted humanity is now inside, hopeful, a nervous prayer on their lips and quietwords to God for deliverance. My shutters are beating now against the glass... the chandelier abovemy head has now flickered and flickered again. Thus does the great storm announce its movementsand threaten our already threatened equilibrium.

It is said that there are no atheists in a fox hole. Neither do such disbelievers abide in storm zonesand catastrophes. In such times prayers come as easily as breathing. As the stormy sea rises, as theseas rush in to threaten and drown our realities, this is my prayer, for myself and my beleagueredfellow travelers now facing the fate that great Irene carries through the surges for us all:

"O Eternal Lord God, who alone spreads out the heavens and rules the raging of the seas, receiveinto your protection all those who go down to the sea in ships and occupy their business on the greatwaters. Preserve them both in body and soul, prosper their labors with good success, in all times of danger, be their defense, and bring them to the haven where they would be, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Let God hear this our prayer for we are all mariners today, threatened by Irene's great wind, roiling

the seas around us... and so now we wait... prepare... and pray,, our Lord our sure redeemer now andforever.







O Little Town... Christmas comes to Cambridge,Massachusetts, December 25, 2011. 12:54 a.m. 20 degreesFahrenheit. Winds W-NW 8 miles per hour.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Before I left on my Christmas walk-about at not quite 1 a.m. Eastern today, I

turned on every light in my brilliantly lit house. On the lights in the hallway thereby exposing inradiance the wistful picture of a young 18th century prince of the House of Brunswick-Luneberg.Dead too soon, not even 20, he craves all the light I can give him, and that is much.

On the lights, all the lights in the Red Drawing Room, on the lights, all the lights in the Green Room,on the lights, all the lights in the Blue Room from where I am writing you now, where the chandelier throws out over 10,000 facets of light. So the seller told me; I have long since given up countingthem... but their colors entrance while its welcome heat warms me...

What kind of mania is this that demands every light lit, every treasure burnished, everything bold,audacious, polished, warm and, to my uttermost ability, welcome?

Just this: It is Christmas Day, this very day, this day of days, to come but once and go... and I amalive, ready, eager to take myself from here and see how this 2,011th Christmas is evolving frommy vantage point in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I command all this light, first, to celebrate theadvent of this day and its great meaning, that on this very day, over two thousand years ago thePrince of Heaven was born, a boon to mankind, our sustaining hope unto the ages. And I want Himto know that He is welcome here... and always has been, though often I did not know or show it...

And, too, there must be light, an explosion of light, to welcome me home, for I mean to go out andsee for myself how this Holy Night is faring and what my neighbors may be doing.

Red hat, white fur, my lassez passer.

This is my 63rd Christmas; the year when my many friends worldwide, of so many climes andcountries, offer their advice freely before I venture out into the dark and cold. "Bundle up," saysMark Anderson. "Remember to cover your ears," proffers Dale Thomson. "Don't stay out too long,"offers David Mobile. Such words, each one on any other day lese majeste', convey care and love...and make me smile. A man like me knows well the warmth of such words and how to conjure them;they cheer the heart such as no fire can. Age hath its wisdoms and privileges; no one knows that better than I do, and I crave them as surely as air or sun; and get them, too.

And so I put on the foolish Santa hat I was given by a young friend who looked raffish when hewore it, whereas I look just silly... but I know that wearing it out this night of all nights, will safelymark me as harmless, eccentric, a man who has imbibed too much of the grape, erroneous

conclusions to be sure, but useful when a man leaves his cozy house at midnight, and warm bed, too,to venture out into the piercing cold of a Bay State Christmas in pursuit of... but you must come outof your snug world and along with me to see.

Presents for me...

In the lobby of my building where I am now, I think, the senior resident or close to it, I see two boxes for me. These neat parcels, festooned by words like FedEx and UPS and the numericmysteries of their tracking systems, firmly establish me as a card-carrying person of the middleclasses and of means; poor people shop at stores and carry home their packages, often on buses andlate-running subways. Mine ascend by elevators and are given by delivery men, exceptionally polite







at this time of year, who say things like "Something else for you, Dr. Lant. Somebody loves you..."

But I have no time for such packages now... I have a mission.

Cold air, colder Puritan.

The cold of midnight is piercing but by no means the worst I have felt; the Internet weather report(the only place I go for weather intelligence anymore) says the wind chill factor is 10 degreesFahrenheit. I feel superior to that, and further plunges, too. I am glad to take it, and to know I can

still take worse; more evidence of my evergreen condition; of increasing importance as I get older...

The Cambridge Common, where by ancient law and privilege I could graze my cows (should I getsome), is vacant tonight... but the statue of John Bridge continues its austere duty, scrutinizing thelives of Cantabridgians, ensuring not that we are as worthy as he (for that is impossible) but that wedo not stray too far from his noble example.

Bridge was a Puritan, a man of God and God's affairs and ran these, no doubt to God's satisfaction,for Bridge's all-worthy career prospered in mid-17th century Cambridge. Such men, the very fibre of moral rectitude and self-assurance (my ancestors, too, for the nonce) made a point of destroying theolde English Christmas of "God rest ye merry gentlemen." Bridge would no doubt have disapprovedthe frivolity of my chapeau... and so I walked on, glad he was not coming to disdain my liberatedChristmas.

The artistry of ice.

Burdened by winter as I often am here, captive of the chill Atlantic and its perishing cold, I moreoften avoid the ice than consider it. Tonight I rectified this error and stopped to scrutinize therandom beauty of ice, frigid patterns that turned yesterday's puddles into tonight's etched allure. It is beautiful, the kind of sharp avant garde pattern in black and silver a stylish billionaire might use todazzle every penthouse guest; here this transient beauty goes unremarked by all but me.

There is livelier fare across the street, when seven squad cars spurt police, busily at work at the maingate of Harvard College, just opened days ago from the thrall of the hapless revolutionaries whoOccupied Harvard, but not effectively or for very long. The police are out in force, a tow-truck at theready, a fellow human being in their arms, his Christmas and destiny to be paid out in hospital or jailcell.

I look instead at the statue of Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874), a man of such austerity andrespectability that when he escorted Mary Todd Lincoln there was no touch of scandal at all, thoughhe was reckoned the most handsome man at Harvard and in Civil War Washington. I often wonder whether the burden of such rectitude made him happy. Certainly his statue does not show it. He wascold in life, and perhaps the coldness of this statue is its truest aspect.

I prefer to spend my Christmas night with another Harvard man, the Reverend Phillips Brooks

(1835-1893). He is memorialized in Harvard Yard, but not in copper and stone. His is a memorial of people, for the people who admired and loved him created in 1904 Phillips Brooks HouseAssociation, a student-run, community-based non-profit public service organization whose missionis the true meaning of this holiday, to give and give until it truly helps and makes a difference.

Brooks took the fine tune by organist Lewis Redner and graced it in 1868 with the words we know as"O Little Town of Bethlehem" and whose words are my prayer for us all this day, and every day.

"O holy Child of Bethlehem Descend to us we pray... O come to us, abide with us Our LordEmmanuel."

(Concluded and sent to the world as the author's gift, 5:05 a.m., Christmas Day, 2011).






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First snow comes to Cambridge, February 12, 2012, a storyof life's unpredictable savor and joys.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. The sound was unmistakable. It was, quite literally, that harsh, grating noisemade when steel of the most tenacious kind scrapes against unyielding concrete; that immutable

thing that insists (to the outrage of your ears) it is here today, here tomorrow, here forever.And I cringed, snug abed as I was... for though the drivers of these inexorable machines would likethe shower of municipal largesse that snow rains upon them every single day; these (usually) highschool drop-outs and bumptious get such benefaction only when the snow flies. Miserable for therest of us, this is their happiest time, for inclemency and beautiful large flakes by the million linetheir capacious pockets and always open palms. Thus are they always johnny on the spot to see thissnow, consider the profits in this snow, remove this snow... as loudly as possible and, whenever possible, especially at the moment you grasped slumber.

So does snow, the most silent thing on Earth, make its presence known by one of the most loud,stentorian and coarse manifestations... and that should have been your first indication that this was

no simple story... quite the reverse... for life's first lesson (and hard learned by most, too) is thatthings are not always what they seem... something too many romantic young things have learned totheir peril too late...

"Let it snow..." some idiot's fancy.

For this tale of our times, a tale you like me might have often experienced in life without a moment'sthoughtful consideration, I have selected an insinuating 1945 tune entitled "Let it snow, let it snow,let it snow," lyrics by Sammy Cahn, composed by Jule Steyne and sung by one of the most unctuousmen ever conceived, Dean Martin. It is a tune that no sensible person likes and which proves yetagain (if necessary) that misinformation set to a bouncy tune gets an award... not its just

come-uppance. (Go to any search engine, find it, and let its lilt uplift you.)My Intention.

When I heard the first unmistakable sounds of the snow removal equipment and the loud commands,imprecations and expletives most assuredly not deleted, I knew my fate... for all that it was dark outside and my penthouse walls were gelid to the touch and its windows emblazoned with the richmunificence of frost expertly etched ..... a clear command I needed to bundle up and go out. Yousee, it's my self-imposed and onerous duty to report on my neighborhood and its denizens whenever something of note is occurring. And there can be no doubt that the first snow of the new year is suchan event... despite the fact it causes me personal misery of the most acute kind to venture out, the better to tell you what is happening and why it is significant. But as the recognized and much

heralded Sage of Cambridge, I know my duty and not even the tundra of Siberia will keep me fromit... though I am paid out in nothing more than chilblain and catarrh.

It was melting, melting, melting.

I selected this heading for one reason and one reason only: to brag that I was once kissed by TheWicked Witch of the West, the character much better known than the actress who played her in theiconic American film released in 1939, "The Wizard of Oz." Her name was Margaret Hamilton, andwhen I was a student at Harvard I gave a tea-party for her one day and, of course, gave myself the best seat on the couch thereby enabling me to rub elbows with a legend.

She, Miss Hamilton I called her, was a sweetie-pie, my highest compliment. I bought her, from my







own money too, an exuberant, grand, frilly box of Valentine's Day chocolates, of the Russell Stover general store variety. She cooed the expected words "For me?" and graced me with a demure,enchanting smile. Then she kissed me and since I was a boy who had been kissed often enough toknow, I conceived it was a Real Kiss, earnestly meant. But she was a great actress, mistress of everyrole; thus I shall never know... but wonder what would have happened had I been as ardent as she...But I digress...

... I simply wanted you to know that the kiss (and the look, mind) she gave me was sufficiently

heated to cause the situation which made her famous, the situation where (doused with commonwater) she melted at the feet of ruby-slippered Dorothy. Perhaps had I melted as well andthoroughly when Miss Hamilton kissed me life might have taken a very different turn...

But, again, I digress, for what I should be telling you pertains to melting snow, not paths not takenor unrecognized (for all they were clear and apparent, had you the wit to see).

The snow outside my door, the snow for which I was well and truly bundled up, the snow that hadcaused such high jubilation and exuberance amongst Cambridge's well-heeled proletariat wasalready melting away, the storm passed on, a wimpish thing to be disdained and dismissed, of noaccount or significance whatsoever. But here, precipitate in my too swift deductions andconclusions, I was most assuredly wrong... for this storm, puny though it may have been, had the

power, ample, too, to change my life... and so it did....

Two incidents, one hard upon the heels of another.

I returned home not as cold as I thought I would be, not as impressed at Nature and Nature's wallopas I expected to be and thought my due for my preparations before going out... a trifle irked at thelittleness I had encountered where I wanted sturm und drang, grandeur, the unspeakable eloquence...you get the picture. But then the phone rang.... and a voice I hadn't heard for ages... was there on theline, in need, happy to overlook the harsh words which had once, I cannot quite remember when,caused estrangement.

He had gotten off the train at Harvard Square, climbing the steps towards the Church Street exit and

had fallen hard down several of them. No, he didn't think anything broken, but could he come for some coffee and solace... could he come, he really meant, for forgiveness and peace-making?

So the snow, melted into icy peril on steps trod by thousands, had delivered... an unexpectedopportunity to mend a fence, a fence that never should have been broken in the first place, much less broken for so long.

And this should have been incident enough for one day, one storm, one sage. But it wasn't... for puny storms aim to prove a puissance and cool connivance mere bulk cannot deliver.

Thus, moments after my now resurrected friend was absolved de facto and with gladness, a car skidded upon the picayune ice and crashed into an unconsidered telephone pole of great

significance, removing my telephone service for one day and still unresolved into two. The messagethat now appears when you call my number says the call cannot be put through, that I am in factmarooned inside my world, the sinews of my life so reduced. Thus this thought:

Suppose my regained friend had taken a later subway to Harvard... and suppose his hard fall hadoccurred an hour or two later, after my phones went silent; that he had called, but received noanswer. What then? Do you think he, hobbling off, would have tried his impulse later, or simply said"Que sera, sera." I shall never know... and that's why life is so interesting, its uncertainties andunpredictabilities its very essence; our detailed and carefully wrought plans so often so insignificantand overpowered beside them.






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'The winds of change' blow over Africa -- again. This timefrom the East. Is anybody paying attention to thisworld-altering trend?

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. On February 3,1960 my distant cousin and British Prime Minister the Right

Honorable Harold Macmillan delivered to the Parliament of South Africa a speech that changed notmerely Africa but the entire world. It came to be called the "Winds of Change" speech thanks to a(generally misquoted) line in the text:

"The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact."

When the speech was reported, "the wind of change" became "the winds of change", and even theauthor himself came to use the misquoted version. The first volume of his memoirs (1966) was titled"The Winds of Change" and rightly so since this single speech and the ruling Conservative Party's180-degree shift on the grave issue of decolonization and self-rule was the result of many winds, not

just one. And these winds not only continue to blow; they blow now with new intensity and force.This time from the East, from China. We are all feeling these winds. They are important already...and each day they become more so as they build to gale force and a world we will hardly recognize,our own hegemony an historic fact, no longer an active reality.

For this geo-political transformation of the first magnitude, I have selected as its musical theme oneof composer John Barry's most moving compositions, "Out of Africa" (1986) for which he receivedthe Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. It evokes a world now gone forever. Find it in anysearch engine...

"Nature abhors a vacuum".

According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC), "Nature abhors a vacuum".He based his conclusion on the observation that nature requires every space to be filled withsomething, even if that something is colorless, odorless air. Thus as the great nations of Europedeparted Africa (as symbolized by plantation owner Baroness von Blixen-Finecke, brilliantly portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film), a half century of political chaos, genocide, and flagrantmisrule made the Dark Continent even darker.

Having done everything to eject the Europeans, the new gimcrack regimes, needing everythingEurope had to offer, now begged for assistance from their former masters. On the principle "Once bitten, twice shy", the Europeans largely demurred, passing up the opportunity to be promised much,getting little in return except the joy of being derided as "neo-colonizers". It was left to the oneremaining world power to help... and in the belief that they were fighting godless Communism

America entered Africa with an open check book making local dictators who had the brains to pratethe right platitudes immensely rich, powerful, and ruthless.

This farrago of good governance went on until the Berlin Wall fell (November 9, 1989) whereuponSoviet Russia was forced to acquiesce in the freedom of all its former subject states, includingRussia itself. One of the consequences of this sea-change was the speed with which Americadropped its no-longer imperative Africa mission. "Here today, gone tomorrow" pretty muchsummed it up... Thus as Uncle Sam's representatives packed and left, quick foot, a vacuum opened...and Beijing, having bided its time as only the Chinese can do, cautiously decided on the most boldand audacious of advance policies. "Out of Africa" by others became the perfect time for the Chinese







to go "In to Africa."

And they have, exhibiting a derring-do not seen since Henry Stanley went deep in the heart of Africato say, "Dr. Livingston, I presume?" (November 10, 1871) If that famous meeting occurred today itmight instead be Chinese president Hu Jintao shaking hands and "I presuming" foreign secretaryYang Jiechi. Both would have dazzling smiles on their faces, the size an indication of the successoccasioning them. For make no mistake, China's economic and foreign policies over the past 20years are dazzling, brilliant, perhaps (but only perhaps) even better than they might have wished or

expected. Beijing has become one of the two great capitals on Spaceship Earth. You may guess theother...

Unthinkable just twenty years ago.

When I was growing up in the '50s, we regularly had missionaries to our church and home. These brought tales of a China on her knees, weighed down with all the baggage of any third-worldcountry. If one of the three children wouldn't eat one thing or another, my father would intone hisstandard admonition for such circumstances and remind us that our peers in China were starving todeath and would eat with gratitude every morsel we disdained. No one, absolutely no one wouldhave predicted that this vision of China was already severely flawed and outmoded... or that the biggest turn-about in history was already underway.... What had changed?

The Chinese people and government made a deal with the Devil. In return for retaining political power and control, the Communist Party ceded economic power... in other words, they conferred theright to be plutocrats on people who now had every trait needed to advance, including a work ethic, patience, and focus that shamed the rest of the world. China grabbed French king Louis Philip'sfamous aphorism "Enrichez vous"... No one in this industrious nation needed to be told twice. Tokeep this voracious money-making giant happily fed, China began to cast a covetous look at Africa,a place where the raw materials it needed could be found in abundance.... and easily gathered.... solong as they adjusted their approach and language so there was no whiff of the former detestedregime. It was a trivial change, and China made it without regret or equivocation. Thus began a storyof the greatest possible importance. The numbers now tell the tale.

"The thousand mile journey starts with a single step."

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, "The thousand mile journey begins with a single step."Thus in 1980, China's trade with Africa was just $1 billion USD. In 1999 it was $6.5 billion USD; in2000 USD $10 billion. These were the baby giant's warm up steps... one of the most determined people on Earth was just getting started... They had crafted their model, created their plan. Now theyworked it with a vengeance:

Total Chinese-African trade reached USD $55 billion in 2006. US trade with Africa that year was$91 billion USD... just 4 years later, 2010, China surged well ahead, with $114 billion USD. It was awhole new ball game... and so the winds of change were well and truly blowing as the zestful,

indefatigable bureaucrats of a new kind of Communism brainstormed strategies to control Africa'smost valuable oil lands in Sudan and Angola... copper from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They unhesitatingly made the deals they had to make to control the nations they had tocontrol to keep the forges of China working, working, working, day and night, never ceasing, alwaysgrowing, and still too little noted or understood.

Another $20 billion to advance China in Africa, the announcement of the biggest loan yet.

Thursday, July 19, 2012 was a red-letter day in Beijing. Every politician whatever his stripes likes to be in the happy position of giving away money, and Chinese president Hu Jintao is no exception.Thus July 19 must have been among the best days of his industrious life. For on that day he







announced that his government would lend $20 billion USD to continue China's mission to Africa.

His audience was a gathering of African leaders smiling at so much money (twice the amount pledged at the last such meeting in 2009). Many must have been wondering just how much theycould pocket how fast. It is the African way of business... The Chinese way is different... Not to takea little, but to give as much as possible, and thereby get even more. And so this day Hu Jintao gaveand gave and gave... including roads, pipelines and ports... He gave Africa training for 30,000; hegave Africa 18,000 scholarships; he gave Africa 1,500 medical personnel. The crowd, the creme de

la creme of African leadership, first smiled, then clapped, then were on their feet shouting their approval for such largesse... largesse without stint, without condescension, without strings, and bestof all, without end. This is the Chinese way, and it works.

South African president Jacob Zuma praised China's approach, saying it was preferred to Africa'sexperience with Europe. "We are particularly pleased that in our relationship with China, we areequals and that agreements entered into are for mutual gain." It is a measure of the Chinese magicthat their clear objective, their distinct neo-colonizing habits have received no rebuke whatsoever from Africans so very sensitive on this subject. That is how supremely well the Chinese play thisall-important game determining the fate of millions.

"Why America Slept."

In 1940 a young John F. Kennedy published a version of a thesis written in his senior year atHarvard College (1938). Titled "Why England Slept" it examines the failures of the Britishgovernment to take steps to prevent World War II. It also examined the build-up of German power. Itis a remarkable book for one so young and might well have found a publisher on its own merits hadthe author's father not pulled the strings pulled so well to make it happen.

I hope now some perceptive student is at work on a similar dissertation about how our GreatRepublic lost Africa. If not, one should seize this opportunity to research and write such a timely book. It could well make you famous and even perhaps awaken our own leadership to the loomingcatastrophe for us already so well advanced. Otherwise we are out of Africa for good and the winds

will blow from the East forever.







'Hear how the wind begins to whisper. Soon it's gonna rain. Ican tell.'

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. In 1960 one of the loveliest musicals ever written hit the Big Apple andmade history. It was "The Fantasticks" with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It

tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the play "The Romancers" by Edmond Rostand,concerning two neighborhood fathers who trick their children into falling in love by pretending tofeud and erecting a wall between their houses.

The show's original off-Broadway production ran a total of 42 years and 17,162 performances,easily making it the world's longest-running musical. One of its gems is a song called "Soon It'sGonna Rain", and I defy you to listen to its lyric beauty unmoved... Go now to any search engine;find the original cast album. Then close your eyes and imagine the gentle rain falling calm andserene, washing away all distress...

"Then we'll let it rain./ We'll not feel it. Then we'll let it rain./ Rain pell-mell."

Beautiful isn't it?... And, in this summer of 2012, painful and ironic, for in these dog days of thisscorching year there is no rain, though millions pray daily for relief and wonder why God does notrespond and save His people.

The facts.

The first and most sobering fact, a fact millions are still not prepared to believe, is that climatechange is no longer a "threat" that will occur sometime in the future. It is present reality as virtuallyevery scientist in the field confirms. This includes three scientists who make their findings clear inthe August 2012 issue of the journal "Nature-Geoscience".

The findings by Christopher R. Schwalm, research assistant professor of earth sciences at Northern

Arizona University; Christopher A. Williams, assistant professor of geography at Clark University,and Kevin Schaefer research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, are telling. In anutshell, this is their conclusion: extreme weather and drought are here to stay and will influence our lives directly or indirectly.

Item: This year's drought, no end in sight, is already one for the record books in terms of duration,severity and temperature.

Item: The 2011 drought in the South Central states was a record at the time, but has easily been bested by the events of 2012.

Item: Widespread annual droughts, once a rare calamity, have become more frequent and are now

ready to become the "new normal."

Bad news gets worse.

Item: A growing frequency of weather and climate extremes like heat waves, droughts, floods, andfires can be expected.

Item: Future precipitation trends, based on climate model projections from the coming fifthassessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, indicate that droughts of the 2012severity will become commonplace as the century progresses.

Item: Assuming "business as usual", each of the next 80 years in the American West is expected to







see less rainfall than the average of the five years of the drought that hit the region from 2002-2004.

And still more bad news.

Item: Crop yields will continue to fall, with many more local cases of complete crop failure.

Item: Agricultural productivity will decline as plants take in only half the carbon dioxide they donormally, thanks to drought-induced drop in photosynthesis.

Item: Major river basins, already showing 5 percent to 50 percent reductions in flow will fall further,with lakes and reservoirs unable to return to "normal." Ever.

Is there any good news?

Frankly, not a great deal. In fact, as I sit here surrounded by learned studies, articles the morealarming because so grounded in indisputable fact, and the jeremiads of scientists worldwide, I wantto bury my head in the sand like most everyone else. But of course that is completely useless andunhelpful, whoever does it.

Why our "leaders" do not lead.

Why do the words "climate change" and our options so rarely if ever pass the lips of our major presidential candidates? They are intelligent men... but they also refuse to rock any boats and afrank, open discussion on the matter certainly does that, roiling the dwindling waters.

They know that talking about human-induced carbon emissions would upset the "see no evil" votersof Michigan, for instance, and Ohio, states they must carry. Thus, the conspiracy grows. Voters andcandidates know about the problems of climate-change... but no one wants to bite this bullet whichwill necessitate major changes of every kind. And so, before our eyes, things worsen. It is theAmerican way and it will, in due course, sabotage our culture and lifestyle.

To avoid this all-but-certain outcome, these are the questions we must ask and honestly answer:

1) Do we have the will, the stomach and the fortitude to see this problem completely and truly?

2) Are we willing to examine all data without flinching or prejudice?

3) Are we willing immediately to act, to implement our findings without special pleading or exemptions?

4) Have we the guts to stay with earth-saving programs for the long durations necessary, for therecan be no rushed or instant conclusions?

5) And finally. Will we induce our leaders to lead by demanding constant effort and a frank, opendiscussion of continuing problems, deterioration and, yes, progress. For if we do not hold their feetto the fire, they will not focus on the necessity for curtailing it.

Is progress certain?

Not as things stand at this moment... but we have not yet begun to fight, and so we cannot say whatwe will do to keep the rain coming and all the benefits which ensue therefrom. "The Fantasticks" willhelp...

"Soon it's gonna rain/... And we'll not complain/ -- Happy ending --- / / If it never stops at all."/

That would be fantastick indeed!

Envoi.







At about 5:45 a.m., just as I was completing this, the heavy mist of early morning changed intogreater abundance as the lightest of rains... a benevolent beginning, most welcome. May it comesoon to your neighborhood and help cleanse us all.







Resource

About The Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small andhome-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY andreceive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.

Republished with author's permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com.


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