ANGELO LYNN

Another strange winter storm swept through the state on Tuesday night packing winds gusting to 70 mph, heavy snow changing to rain amounting to a few inches in most of the state, but up to 10 inches in Randolph and Braintree, and leaving 27,000 or more Vermonters without power for what could be multiple days. Another high-wind storm follows on Friday.

Last year a similar storm hit the state a couple weeks earlier, just before Christmas, causing even more damage with higher winds and colder temps and knocking out power for 3-5 days around Lake Dunmore and many parts of Addison County. We don’t want to say it’s part of the new normal, whatever that might mean, but it’s no coincidence that these freakish storms are related to higher-than-normal global temperatures with a climate changing faster than anticipated.

It’s no secret 2023 shattered records for being the hottest year on record across the globe. According to a report in Monday’s New York Times, scientists confirmed 2023 “appears to be among the warmest years in at least 100,000,” according to Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “There were simply no cities, no books, agriculture or domesticated animals on this planet the last time the temperature was so high,” he said.

The signs of that warmer globe were everywhere: Canada saw it most destructive wildfires ever as more than 45 million acres of forest burned, sending a choking haze across the northern half of the U.S.; hot weather baked Iran and China, Greece and Spain, Texas and the American South; less sea ice formed around the coasts of Antarctica than ever previously measured, the report continued.

That warming climate had local impacts as well, seen this year with a summer that started off dry in late May, then turned on its head and sent incessant rain and record flooding across the state for the rest of summer. While some snows came early in mid-to-late November, Vermont saw more flooding and a record warm and snowless Christmas week.

Temps were so warm this December in Addison County that several maple sugarmakers began tapping their trees. A story on today’s front page reports the Heffernan Family Sugarworks in Starksboro collected 43,000 gallons of sap by the end of December and has already made over 1,500 gallons of syrup. When I moved here 40 years ago, the month of February was traditionally when the sap might start flowing in warmer years, and by Town Meeting Day the sugaring season had begun in earnest most years.

Such changing weather is news because it affects so much of what we do — from farming practices to outdoor recreation, tourism to how we build and site our homes and businesses, and of course the choices we make to power our homes, vehicles and businesses.

As the legislative session kicks off this week (see story Page 1A), how to address the issues around climate change are among the top concerns of area legislators, with much of that concern focused on the practical issues of making strategic investments in infrastructure to reduce future damage.

On that point, ANR Secretary Julie Moore wrote an op-ed this week which, while sympathizing with legislators wanting to address the issue on various fronts, spoke to the need to approach the issue with a clear strategy in mind.

“Last year will be remembered for a series of environmental disasters and is a clear indication that our changing climate is already threatening Vermonters’ health, safety, quality of life and economic security… The devastating floods this past summer impacted our bridges and dams, impacted our homes and businesses, and left indelible marks in communities throughout Vermont, amounting to more than $500 million in losses. Estimates from the December floods are still being calculated…

“The raft of resilience-related draft legislative proposals released last week, in addition to the work already under way by state agencies,” she continued, “makes it clear the legislative and executive branches share an understanding of the magnitude of the challenge – and a sense of urgency in addressing it.”

She went on to say that it was equally important to not just do “something” about the problem, “but the right thing.” 

That “right thing” was the joint effort announced by Governor Phil Scott and Treasurer Mike Pieciak last week to develop a resilience implementation strategy, she said, adding that it “recognizes the need to act swiftly and prioritize projects and funding to greatest effect…The Governor and Treasurer’s statewide approach will draw in and improve on efforts already underway, while also revealing to us the gaps where we fall short. This will ensure we meet the challenge and are doing so in a way that is efficient in its use of money and effort.”

If this slightly veiled message is cautioning legislators to reign in the number of separate initiatives they undertake in various committees, lest they be duplicative or wasteful in the aggregate, point taken. 

And for any Addison Independent readers who may believe climate change is a liberal hoax, heaven help you, but at least take note of the financial consequences of our changing climate: Moore’s citing of $500 million in losses for the summer’s flooding, is just a fraction of the cost the state, multiplied by all 50 states, is making to adapt to meet increased needs of roads, bridges, public recreational areas, and on and on. You can see those costs in your local town budgets, but the much bigger costs are at the state and national levels. And that’s as real as real can be.

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Meanwhile, climate activists around the world are trying to get as many of us regular folks as possible to do what we can — from driving hybrids or electric vehicles, to weatherizing our homes, to installing heat pumps and solar panels or trackers, and everything else to reduce our carbon footprint — to stave off the worst results of a warming climate.

That message can be dire and anti-big oil, but it’s also about something much more: the cultural loss of the world as we’ve known it (with snow and skiing, polar bears and ice caps, glaciers in the Alps, snow in the Rockies, Adirondacks and Greens.) That we are on a track to substitute winter with an extended mud-season all so oil companies, and others, can make more profit is a warranted grievance, but it’s the loss of winter — the magic of this season of sledding, skiing, ice skating, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, ice fishing, or just walking on a snowy night — that stings the most. 

Environmentalist, author and journalist Bill McKibben, who is also a Ripton resident and avid skier at Rikert Outdoor Center, recently recalled that “the EPA, twenty years ago, said in their regional climate report for northern New England that cross-country skiing might well become extinct in the second half of this century, along with snowmobiling. So in one sense a winter like this is not surprising, but it’s still so painful. Winter is the whimsical season, when friction gives up its grip on the Earth for a while and lets you slide across the surface. That we’d sacrifice that to help Exxon’s profit margin is sad indeed.”

But what can be done, I asked.

“Climate change is not mysterious,” he replied. “If we build enough solar panels and wind turbines and batteries, we can cut the rising slope of temperature. We’re not going to get the winters of my youth back, but we might be able to stop us short of one long mud season.”

Enough said. Time for all of us to do what we can.

Angelo Lynn