It’s that time of year when winter anxiety sets in. Snow birds have packed up and split for the warmer places, night comes earlier, yard stuff is put away, and visions of whiteouts dance in our heads.

When will the first blizzard happen? How long and how severe will this winter be? How much will heating cost?

Pushed into the recesses of our memories are the highlights of the summer. Baseball, swimming and all those warm-weather activities are unthinkable now that the darker days have arrived. It is time to hunker down.

Maybe I’m overstating the case. For most of us, the dread of winter is worse than winter itself.

Soon we put on Christmas; homes that were shrouded in dull gray burst into color. The Hallmark Channel guarantees love and happy endings. There is music everywhere – the old songs over and over again, love them or not.

But then comes January, and we realize that for the next three months we will experience frigid temperatures, blizzards and a spell of cabin fever. The good news is that we are getting used to it, and we realize we probably won’t die from the cold.

I wonder how people who live year round in the South and Southwest feel as spring turns to summer down there. Do they suffer from similar anxiety? When will the extreme heat begin? Will their AC units hold up? When will the first ocean storm hit?

Native American populations existed all across the continent before the European invasion. They adapted to all climates – from the frigid subarctic to the tropical.

In the northern climates, there was plenty of firewood, and there were deer, elk, moose along with a plethora of small game and plantlife to provide means of survival through the harshest winters.

In the southern parts, there wasn’t much of a threat of freezing to death. But there was oppressive heat and humidity. Somehow those indigenous people developed a great tolerance to survive.

Even if we flash forward to colonial migrations, like the Acadians who escaped persecution in the northlands and settled in southern Louisiana, people found ways to cope with the elements. Towns sprung out of the deserts and swamplands of the South and Southwest. Just over a century later, with the invention of the electric fan and the air conditioner, the modern migration to warm climates was on.

In the Northeast, folks seized on the opportunity to escape the perpetual gray skies and long winters. They dreamed of warm, sunny days on the beaches and desired the modern conveniences afforded in the southern communities. It would be worth the minimal risk of a hurricane, tornado or drought.

Today, with climate change, the odds of experiencing a disaster have increased significantly. Florida and the Carolinas are being ravaged by hurricanes every year. Massive forest fires are common in the West. And the natural water supply for the huge populations of the Southwest is proving insufficient as the Colorado River is running dry. As a result, more and more people are second guessing their flight away from the Northeast.

Perhaps this is a more practical way of looking at the difference between living in the South and North: would you rather spend five months a year indoors with AC because it’s too hot to go out, or five months indoors with a heater because it’s too cold?

In conclusion, I put forth this argument: In the natural world, we frail, furless homsapiens have the physical and mental means to heat up our bodies when it’s cold. We can make fire, we can build shelters to ward off the wind and snow, we can kill animals and strip them of their hydes to cover our blanched skin, and we can run and dance like maniacs to get our blood flowing.

Conversely, when it’s extremely hot there is no natural way to cool down our bodies other than, perhaps, taking a dip in the delta or meditating upon the mirage of an oasis in the desert.

Pete Howard, a teacher, musician, writer and house painter, lives in Dunkirk.