Sorry. No return to the Ice Age this year

Every time I’ve step outside the door so far in December I am reminded - by the mild temperatures and lack of snow - that our planet seems to be shifting away from winters that I once considered ‘normal.’

Our postman was even wearing shorts the other day.

Hello! This is Canada, eh!

I was born in 1949 in small-town Ontario and as a young child got quite used to cold winters and a mother who would make the following reminders from December to mid-March whenever I stepped outside:

“Don’t forget your toque.”

“Where are your mittens?”

“Do up the zippers on your boots. They’ll fill up with snow.”

“Zip your coat all the way up. You don’t want to catch cold.”

“Get home before supper.”

And, of course, I’d always hear her but pay her little mind. (Poor Edith).

I do, however, pay attention to the direction that average global temperatures appear to be heading as depicted in the line graphs from NASA.


From 1949 to 1969, though there were fluctuations in average global temperature from year to year and in the five-year mean (as one might expect), the earth didn’t warm significantly and if an alien had asked me, when I was 20-years old, to describe a typical Canadian winter in 10 words or less I would have said, “You’ll see lots of snow so don’t forget your mitts.”

From 1970 onward (the last 40 years), however, the average global temperature has generally headed north, enough to say that the trend has been toward global warming and climate instability.

Every few years the average will dip for a year or two but, during those times, the Ice Age hasn’t returned, perhaps because the Earth’s average is now too high to allow that to happen overnight.

Based on what I read and wrote about earlier, that "carbon emissions have been rising fast in recent years (as have average global temperatures), but are set to dip by up to 3 per cent in 2009 because of the recession,” I wouldn’t be surprised to see the global average temp stabilize somewhat (rather than continue its upward trend) if we stay in a recession mode for 5 - 10 years or more.


(E.g., lower industrial production may result in less carbon released into the atmosphere which may slow the warming trend).

Though the recession has put many people out of work and I don’t wish unemployment on anyone, I still recommend an austere lifestyle until a small, sustainable economy can be developed and maintained.

I.e., reduce spending, pay off debt, increase savings and wear woollen mittens when needed.

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The link to NASA provides a look at average global temperatures from different angles. Please take a look.

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