Winter Break

2/9/23 – Some Anthropocene news while I catch up on things

ice flowers formed during the recent cold snap

Hello everyone:

I’ve been a bit under the weather these past few days. Not ill, really, but fighting a bug and feeling tired in the wee hours when I do most of my research and writing. As a result, I’m only halfway through this week’s work.

This is my 95^th week writing the Field Guide, and the first that I’ve come up short on the writing. So let’s call it a winter break, and you’ll have your usual essay/newsletter next week.

Speaking of winter breaks, until mid-January winter here in midcoast Maine was warm and almost snowless. For a few weeks, though, we’ve had a taste of normal cold and snow, plus a quick visit from severe Arctic air that broke records and burst pipes. Both phenomena – the too-warm winter and the jet stream turbulence that pushed polar air southward – are likely related to the larger shifts at play in a warmer world.

Those shifts are all around us, vast and invisible, obvious and perplexing, tiny and terrible, and are woven …