I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the snow. (With so much of it, it’s hard to think about anything else.) And I’ve been reading lots of Facebook and Twitter posts about people getting stuck, unable to go on vacations, frustrated that they can’t get out of their house with their babies (oh wait, that’s me), and more.
Last week’s snowstorm almost caused some serious trouble for us. My husband was in Israel on a business trip and was supposed to land on Friday morning at 6 am. So that we could move to a new apartment on Saturday morning at 8 am. Of course we had movers coming, and of course we were about 75% packed before he left… but there was still a lot to do. And then his flight was delayed. And I was sitting in Brooklyn, trapped in my house, without the babysitter who was supposed to come entertain the baby while I packed because the NYC buses weren’t running…having a minor freakout.
Luckily, it all worked out. But as I packed box after box, wrapping dishes in paper, using packing tape to seal them, writing on them in magic markers, I started thinking. Maybe the storm is my fault.
Let me explain. As we prepared to move, I went through all sorts of stuff. I threw away broken toys, I gave away clothes that we no longer wore, and I shredded bank statements that I’d kept for 10 years. It felt good to get rid of a lot of unnecessary stuff. But we threw a lot away. (I recycled everything I could, took as much to the Salvation Army as I could, but some of it was just trash.)
And it made me think about my own personal impact on global warming, and how global warming is probably the cause of this weekly winter storming.
Though your first reaction might be, “wait, I thought global warming made it warmer. What does that have to do with freezing rain?” it actually turns out that global warming means the earth is getting warmer, which means that weather patterns are out of sync. It can cause worse storms–such as these. Now, I am going to say this clearly–I have not consulted with scientists on this. I do not know whether these storms are a direct result of me wrapping dishes in lots of packaging. But I kind of believe it.
Maybe this is God or Mother Nature or someone telling us to get it together. Stop tossing everything. Recycle more–or better yet, reuse. Work on decreasing your carbon footprint. Don’t behave like you can always get another of whatever it is you’re throwing out today.
Bal taschit
–be a caretaker of the earth, don’t destroy it. And maybe if we all do a little something, we won’t get as much freezing rain next week. Hey, a girl can hope, right?
