The Hypocrisy of Snows
In the very early 2000s, I had a meeting with a Vice President of Evening Post Industries. The manager of a local television which was owned by this firm arranged the meeting suggesting I was a good candidate for the position of the Evening Post’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) position in Charleston, South Carolina.
During that meeting, the Vice President asked me if I had any media experience, to which I said rather lightheartedly, “Yes, as a youngster I was a paperboy for the Timmins Daily Press located in northern Ontario”. Having worked for the Norfolk Tillsonburg Newspaper in Ontario, Canada, he immediately recognized the Timmins Daily Press as being the very first newspaper owned by Roy Thomson also known as Lord Thomson of Fleet. Lord Thomson went on to become a media magnet of the day.
I do not often reflect back on this first experience with self-employment; however, when I see reports of severe winter storms, I think of the dedication and devotion required to confront all types of weather to ensure the newspaper arrived undamaged and legible at the front door of every subscriber. After all, this was in a time period long before the arrival of the internet or multiple television stations for news and sports. In this delivery of perseverance and dedication, it seems only the post office gets the credit.
The longest and most isolated walk on my route was the delivery to Slim Nelson’s horse ranch. A lengthy walk directly into a blustery blizzard driven by a bitter north wind coming down from the distant James and Hudson Bays was not a joy. Fortunately, I had a younger brother that I could often count on, or conjure into, delivering that one single paper – albeit it was a heavy price at 25¢, but at times it seemed worth the exorbitant expense.
Weather reporting during the past Christmas season has certainly brought back vivid memories of those cold snowy times as a paperboy.
Some reporters announce the devastation of the storm as a result of a “Cyclone Bomb” or a “Polar Vortex”, both assuredly ‘designer’ terms reflecting that snow and cold are definitely a result of human-induced climate change and the condition is initiated and exaggerated high in the atmosphere where no one really sees or perceives it. Stories like the linked one from Scientific American recall these storms as being recent only, yet weather personnel intentionally forget blizzards like the one of 1977 that was definitely much worse than the recent tempest. It occurred 11 years before the invention of climate change.
As I scroll through varying comments posted by people with longer-term memories than young left-leaning journalists, many remember the strong wintry storms of the past as being much more intense and devastating than the recent one, but if one is a climate change hustler all severe or harsh weather is now the result of their cause.
Yet, many in the advocate climate arena talk constantly about the ending of snow as I discuss here – each and everyone, irrespective of weather or situation are simply hypocrites.
