Last Day of Winter Hits 70

    Yesterday, 3//19/12 was the last of winter and yes it touched 70. Everyday I've been reluctant to not where my big coat and long sleeves for concern later while going out to my graveyard security guard shift at the Jericho gated community-yes there's been some excitement in the news about gated community lately, hopefully I'm alright that was Florida, I'm in NY- I'd get caught in the cold.

   But today, I've gone out on a limb and glad I did. Judging by the forecasts I won't end up paying for it either. So what gives?

   This past winter has got to be unprecedented at least in my life time in NY.  I've lived here since I was 3-a couple of misspent years in Massachusetts to be sure-and I've never had a winter with no snow. I think they said that this past winter was one of the warmest. Maybe it's not the warmest ever but it's got to be the first with no snow at all in a long time-in my life time. Only twice all winter did it try to snow and both times it was no more than half an inch.

   So what gives? I don't know. There are those who will argue global warming. For me right now I'm agnostic about that. I kind of don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. As I'm currently stuck taking public transit no snow this past winter certainly helped me. Global warming is one of those externalises which while as a whole we may have a large interest in but none of us individually have that much interest particularly those who are struggling. In my experience the people most concerned about things like global warming have the means to do something about it. Going green at present is still very expensive.

  What I do wonder though is will we pay for this later? Somehow...  Surely we will. I mean the forecasts now say we could hit 80 by the end of the week. While this is nice in March does this mean that it will be 120 in July? One might hope that we are in a Great Moderation of temperature where we never get much above 80 during the summer. But to me I wonder if we don't face either a too warm summer or a really bad winter next year to make up for this year. Or, maybe we are entering a new Era of Good Weather sort of like the Era of Good Feeling after the War of 1812. Come to think of it, that didn't end well either.