Freezing temperatures change behaviors

The unrelenting cold that has punished people from Maine to Florida the past week will recede a bit this week. Or so the forecasters say.

Mild winters have left us complacent and memory-deprived. We don't readily recall the painfully cold days of years past. We want to forget them. We want to forget the aching in our skin and bones, the numbness in fingers and ears exposed to too much cold, the ache in our lungs as we breathe in air so frigid and dry.

All of those aches and pains have shackled us these past several days. Outdoor activities have been canceled. Even walking the dog has been too awful to consider. Despite warm coats, hats and gloves we shiver whenever we venture outside. Even in a home with central heat, we bundle up with sweaters and blankets. We want to be warm!

Inevitably, climate change deniers insist that a cold snap of such intensity proves they are right, and the consensus of the world's scientists are wrong. But intense cold can exist on a warming planet, just as intense heat can exist on a cooling planet. One weather phenomenon says nothing about climate, which is a long-term regional, continental or hemispheric condition. 

But this cold snap and the summer's next heat wave do have an impact on environment. Our environment can be inviting or forbidding, and it is changing. Alaska is cold; Florida is hot. But temporary weather conditions can make it feel warm in Alaska and cold in Florida. The environment of a particular place is what we're used to, but it can temporarily change, and that has an environmental impact that goes beyond the temperature of the air.

Consider the economic environment. The cold weather we've recently experienced has had an impact on retail sales and on government services. Few people want to venture out into the icy cold to go shopping, so retail sales lag. Governmental employees may not be able to get to their jobs because of iced-over roads, and services such as garbage collection or building permits or public schools suffer. The neighborhood might look like a "winter wonderland," but the dangers and discomforts of such weather are nothing to sing about.

As we take refuge indoors while the cold still lingers and the temperature remains below freezing, it helps to remind ourselves that the spring equinox is less than two months away.