We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For

When Arctic storms whip down into the Midwest like they have over the past few days, it usually means that we in northern B.C. also get a blast of frigid air called an ‘Arctic outflow.’ Cold Arctic air comes down from the north and gets trapped on the western side of the Rockies. As more cold air pushes down, this parcel of air is pushed further south and forced into the valleys that are normally filled with mild moist air off the Pacific, causing drastic changes in temperature and wind-chill factors. That’s the scientific description. The off-the-grid log cabin resident’s description of an Arctic outflow goes something like this: splitting firewood – lots of it, getting up in the middle of the night to keep the fire going in the woodstove, letting the creek trickle through our kitchen faucet to avoid freezing, covering the windows with quilt batting, bundling up in wool shirts and down vests, checking the outside temperature – and the inside temperature (yesterday morning it was 45-degrees Fahrenheit inside the cabin), and putting a few filberts on a stump for our red squirrel neighbor, But so far, this winter has been mild compared to last year, which was the hardest winter this area of B.C. has experienced in decades. Unpredictable and unprecedented weather – all a part of global climate change.

And speaking of climate change, The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman had an excellent piece of “good news” reporting on climate change called, THE PEOPLE WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR - about positive action rather than pointless debate. First, he reports that Google announced last week that it was going to invest millions of dollars to develop its own energy business — the goal, to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity. Its primary focus, said Google.org’s energy expert, Dan Reicher, will be to advance new solar thermal, geothermal and wind solutions that will be cheaper than coal and could power all of San Francisco. Then Friedman mentions three engineering undergrads who helped launch the Vehicle Design Summit — a global, open-source, collaborative effort, managed by M.I.T. students, that has 25 college teams around the world working together to build a plug-in electric hybrid within three years. They’re not waiting for G.M. Their goal, they explain on their Web site, is “to identify the key characteristics of events like the race to the moon and then transpose this energy, passion, focus and urgency” on catalyzing a global team to build a clean car. Friedman ends by writing, “I just love their tag line. It’s what gives me hope: We are the people we have been waiting for.”

A side note: The phrase “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” has been attributed by some sources to the Hopi Elders.
... P.L. Morningstar