Can you have too much snow? For much of North America, the answer, just days ago, was a resounding ‘Yes.’ The toll included at least 31 people who died in Buffalo in a snowstorm over Christmas. As we write, another massive winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain to the Midwest, with thunder possibly accompanying as much as 12 inches of snow, as well as tornadoes in the South.
Given that Parkites got as much as 40 inches of snow across the New Year’s holiday, we ought to be glad the wind didn’t kick up and we saw little freezing rain. The greater danger to life and limb here over an epic weekend was likely to gear-laden skiers walking to the mountains on buried side streets while wearing dark clothes well before sunrise.
If your business is winter or you live to ski, Park City is sitting pretty in its shrouded whiteness. But we shouldn’t be lulled into thinking our problems with climate change or even drought will get solved as easily as, say, parking for skiing — which should tell you something about the depth of our climate predicament.
Last weekend also saw record-setting rainfall in parched California — which led to deadly flooding. There is every reason to believe we will see even more extreme weather events over at least the next decade. Parkites are well positioned to take advantage of some of those, in the winter season, but the problem is much bigger than us.
We as Americans, for example, are concurrently struggling with the limits of electoral democracy in novel ways (and that have little to do with Donald Trump or Jan. 6). Take the Biden administration, which, despite its green campaign rhetoric, in its first year significantly increased leasing for drilling on public lands over the Trump administration’s record. The Biden administration has more authority to limit energy drilling on leased public lands than it has been willing to use, for political reasons.
Limiting conventional fuel production might sound good at an international climate conference but tends to drive up consumer fuel prices, which politically imperils an administration. It then could lose the future ability to take the same or other green initiatives. And in a two-party system, if one won’t move faster for political reasons, neither, generally, will the other.
Democracies are better than dictatorships for protecting civil liberties but they just might be worse at saving the planet.
Still, in the shorter term — which could be the only term we have — there may be plenty of good skiing. It’s a little like playing waltzes as the Titanic sinks, yet there doesn’t seem to be a practical alternative.
At least the music will be good for a while.