THINGS
2 HEAT UP IN THE COMING ICE AGE.
THE
VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS.
By John McCarthy
The Moderate Voice
Now that the authorities involved have irretrievably solved
the mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (without even a scrap of evidence)
…
Let’s move to another ephemeral topic of conversation as
Winter transitions into Spring during this Global Warming in the year of our
Zombie Apocalypse 2014 …
The Weather.
Now if Bob Dylan is right and “you don’t need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows” then this shouldn’t be hard at all.
Unless you are trying to divine the future of the Ukraine,
the mental health of Vladimir Putin or the body language of President Obama as
he told the height-challenged Russian leader: don’t take another step.
Human beings as mammals are subtropical animals that are
ideally suited to be at 78 degrees Fahrenheit (25.555 degrees Celsius).
Another columnist seen regularly @ The Moderate Voice wrote
a piece this year saying basically that Americans are whiners and need to buck
up and get with the program: i.e., more shoveling and less sniveling. We tamed
the Wild West – running a snow blower should be a breeze.
But what I am about to write next is very uncool – and also
just coincidentally carries an NC-17 warning: Still, you get what you pay for
when it comes to your weather: and wherever you live, you chose it bucko.
Where I’m from in Detroit, the folks got 78 inches of snow
and experienced one of the coldest winters in 20 years. My family spoke to me
only once – on my birthday this month – I think they blame me. Today’s forecast
for March 26 – a time when normally the crocuses should be sprouting – calls
for 18 degrees (-7.777 degrees Celsius) and “fair.”
Especially when the U.S. Census Bureau says more Americans
are staying put where they live for decades longer than at any other time in
our history – unless you have a trip planned to Bora Bora every Winter – you
should be in a cold sweat if you are subjecting your body to weather conditions
that it was not designed to endure.
You eat superfoods like broccoli, drink herbal teas and
mineral waters and jog for your health; but, when it comes to putting your body
into weather conditions that are most ideal for it – most people generally go
where the jobs are … Got a great new executive position in Buffalo? Great! But
get a stress test before shoveling your driveway every morning.
One of my college roommates at the University of Michigan
was Architect Eng Liang Ong of Singapore. About once a month I would ask him
what the temperature was in that city nation they call a “Mini Tiger” – didn’t
matter what month of the year I asked him – the answer was always the same: 86
degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).
It got me to thinking: maybe I didn’t need to live in a cold
climate nine months of the year? My first move after college was a step up
weather-wise – New York City. The winters of the Big Apple seemed balmy
compared to Ann Arbor – and the snow rarely stuck to the ground – a sign that
the temperature was above freezing.
While I was at Michigan I took a course in meteorology – on
the path to one-day being an on-air television reporter – one of the things the
professor stressed in the lectures was that the weather records only go back to
the 1880’s – not enough time/data to accurately predict anything in terms of
future climatic conditions.
When I was growing up, Time Magazine did a cover story about
“The Coming Ice Age” complete with wooly mastodons, white saber-toothed tigers
and oversized polar bears. Still, I assumed that the future was bright. If you
look at the Wikipedia entry for my hometown of Livonia – there is a picture of
a futuristic-looking City Hall building in the middle of an empty, snow-filled
parking lot.
It made me wonder if anyone would look at that picture and
want to visit there – I surely wouldn’t. My high school art teacher, who had
red hair and a moustache, Mr. Nesbitt used to always say that you didn’t have
to stay where you were born – you are free to roam about the planet as you wish
– “The World Is Yours.”
Now there was a new tsunami alarm testing warning signal
this morning as I was writing this column. And the territory did have its
posterior handed to itself after Hurricane Hugo in 1989 – but the building
codes were improved – the infrastructure was improved – to the point that when
Hurricane Marilyn devastated the islands in 1995 – the electricity was back on
sooner.
I’ve had clients in Port Charlotte, FL; Binghamton, NY and
Morristown, NJ warn me that I should leave St. Croix because it is likely that
I’ll be slammed again by another hurricane in the fall. Soon after, those very
same areas were smacked down by cyclones.
As Iggy Pop says: “You pays your money and you takes your
chances.”
The average mean temperature for the U.S. Virgin Islands is
78 degrees Fahrenheit. Today’s forecast calls for a low of 71 and a high of 86.
But it’s not all good – the service is a bit slow today
delivering me my Crucian Rum mojito at poolside – and then there’s the
mosquitoes and the sand flies – still, I can’t complain (sometimes I still do).
Wherever you are on the mainland – be cool – it shouldn’t be
hard to do this winter.
© 2014 John Francis
McCarthy/Secret Goldfish Publishing House, LLC
John McCarthy is an investigative
reporter, artist and photojournalist based in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please
send questions and comments to: johnfmccarthy807@msn.com
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