So far the winter of 2024-25 has been a return to real winter weather for Western NY. In fact, I used my snowblower more this year than I have the last two years combined. Hopefully, the worst of winter will soon be over and in a few weeks Frosty Treat in Irving will open for the season, perhaps the surest sign we have that spring is here.

Proponents of climate change caused by human activity would have us believe that the major winter storms that brought snow and cold weather to the Mid-Atlantic and the South occurred because warming temperatures are disrupting the “dreaded” polar vortex. They say this allows cold air and even snow into nontraditional areas like New Orleans and parts of Mississippi and the Florida panhandle where they have not had snow in some cases for over 100 years. These snowstorms that occur every hundred years or so are really examples of climatic aberrations and not proof of climate change in much the same way that tornadoes in New York state where we have averaged ten per year since 1900 are not proof that we are becoming part of “Tornado Alley” but are also aberrations.

Now I agree with proponents of climate change that our climate is changing and is something like plate tectonics that is a continuing process that began when the Earth was formed and will continue until it is consumed by our sun in its death throes in a few billion years. If you fear climate change you could become an astronaut and colonize the planet Mars but that is essentially a dead world and not a place where I would want to live.

Truly scientific weather forecasting, observations, and record keeping only began 160 years ago. Until that point all weather and climatic data was found anecdotal in ships logs, family stories, monastery records, letters, and diaries meaning that we know almost nothing from the past that can be used to prove that our current climate change is unusual.

Some believe, that the hullabaloo over climate change was the work work Democratic politicians like John Kerry and Al Gore, and elites like the so called “world leaders” who recently concluded their annual meeting at Davos, Switzerland, and flew home in their private jets after a meal of Kyoto Beef while urging you and I to fly less, eat plant based foods or even insects, get rid of our cars and walk, ride a bike or use public transportation like the New York subway system where riders put their lives on the line daily.

It’s similar to when prohibition became law in 1920. Prohibition was an attempt by elites to save the working class from beer, whisky and the saloons that served them. The elites who led the prohibition movement stocked up on alcohol or frequented bootleggers and continued to have their evening aperitif all through prohibition. President Woodrow Wilson, a strong supporter of Prohibition, made sure to take his wine cellar with him when he left the White House in 1921.

Proponents of climate change claim “extreme weather events” like the recent snowstorms in the south are caused by a changing climate but even back in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s I remember that extreme weather events occurred. I was just a kid, but I remember that late summer in the mid 1950s saw many Hurricanes cruising up the east coast.

In those days eastern New York suffered several droughts when we weren’t suffering from hurricane rain events. One year we went so long without rain that when the drought finally broke the whole neighborhood stood and watched a wall of rain coming down the Mohawk Valley

In the late ’50s our school was closed for eight days after two nor’easters dumped several feet of snow on the Mohawk Valley just days apart. Now that was extreme, but at least there was no distance learning in those days.

Then there was the “Blizzard of 77” — as extreme a weather event as I’ve ever seen. The weather actually became arctic like right after Thanksgiving and got worse. Frequent squalls in December made driving to work at the Brand Names at Union and Walden like being in the middle of a bumper car ride.

On the first night of the blizzard, I remember looking out at the usually busy intersection of Union and Walden Avenues empty except for stalled cars and being reminded of a scene from the movie “On the Beach” the story of the aftermath of a nuclear war. Soon the press began telling us of an Imminent ice age.

Finally, I’m happy to report that the Seychelles Islands of the Indian Ocean have not sunk beneath the sea as was predicted some years ago and that land values have even risen. Also, the United States continues to operate an air base on the Pacific atoll of Wake Island that at its highest point is 20 feet above sea level. I can also report that the great ice sheets of Antarctica have not begun their predicted retreat. Further I can again report that the parking lot at First Encounter Beach on Cape Cod is not underwater and remains much as I first saw it nearly 70 years ago.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com.