It has been a very dry summer, and an alarming drought is growing in New England.
When I was young, normalcy bored me, and any weather outside the norm seemed better than Camelot weather. I had a yearning for thunderstorms, and even tornadoes, and was very annoyed hurricanes never seemed to clobber New England anymore. But, if we couldn’t get storms toppling trees, maybe the sunshine could become a hazard, and drought could cause forest fires. Anything seemed better to me, as a young man, than the stultifying oppression of a Boston suburb. (Parents may have intended to create heaven on earth, but emerald suburbs were boring, boring, Bore-Ing.)
But now I am not a young man anymore. I am an old man, and a bit of a wet blanket on such youthful thirst-for-disaster. For one thing, where disaster once meant extra work, which I could profit from, now disaster means extra work I can’t afford paying others for, and must hobble about doing for myself. For another thing, thirsting for disaster nowadays always seems to involve Global Warming, and the politics of taking away people’s liberty and replacing it with a Globalist Big Brother. Heck with that. When I was young, I could thirst for disaster, and it didn’t cost the taxpayers a trillion dollars.
For example, if I wanted to thirst for a hurricane I had only to research the 1938 hurricane. If it happened before, might it not happen again? I had no need to involve men in white coats blaming CO2. In the same way, if I wanted thirst for drought and terrible fires, I had only to research the 1947 drought and the fires that burned nine towns from the map of Maine.
In the above picture the distant pines are likely at least fifty feet tall, so the sheet of flame arising is likely approaching 200 feet tall. Such fires might be ordinary among people in California, but it is completely outside the experience of modern New Englanders.
Oh, how I yearned for such excitement to return! The suburbs of Boston were so dull, dull, Duh-hell! And the trees grew so close together in the richer neighborhoods. A good fire with a southwest breeze of 25 mph would sure liven things up! But Alas! God had mercy and my wicked wishes never occurred, until….maybe….this year. If you look at the above drought map you will see the most tinder-dry forests are those fat-cat suburbs of Boston, where the suburbanites allow trees to grow right beside their houses, which the old Yankee never would allow.
Why not? Because every fifty years or so there might be a forest fire, and you sure didn’t want your house in such a forest as it blazed.
In fact, if you look back up to the picture of 1947 above, you will notice the people are standing by a house which is a heck of a long way from the fire. The house is far from the trees for a reason. People had common sense back then. People in the suburbs of Boston have no such common sense now, and the most expensive homes are midst the thickest trees.
Should the current drought result in a forest fire in the suburbs of Boston, many expensive homes will be involved. Yet will the wisdom of the builders and maintainers be so much as questioned?
No, Global Warming will be the culprit. Global Warming will get the blame. Why? Because of a political agenda which wants to do….. whatever…. but it has nothing to do with common sense.
Common sense just looks to the past to see what can be expected. This shouldn’t be any big deal. However, the past is politically incorrect, when the past does not affirm that the current situation is the “worst ever” and caused by “Global Warming”.
Now that I myself am an old-timer I inherently carry a certain political incorrectness. Why? Because I remember. I know the current drought is not the worst, for I lived through the worst.
The worst drought in New England history was not a single, extended period without rain, but season following season with below-normal rainfall. Slowly but surely it all added up. In some areas it began as early as 1960, but by 1964 it was becoming extreme. The water supply for the city of Boston was threatened. The chief reservoir for this water was the Quabbin, and in 1965 it hit an all-time low.
The above graph shows the severity of the drought, and also that, even when rains returned, the reservoir was slow to recover. Back in those days they could not blame Global Warming to raise taxes, but some politicians were deeply concerned Boston would lack water, and as I recall there were even suggestions that major rivers, such as the Connecticutt and Merrimac, should be diverted to the Quabbin Reservoir, so people in the suburbs of Boston could water their lawns.
Back then it turned out we did not need to divert major rivers. In like manner it may turn out we do not need to destroy our economy with a Green New Deal, when the current drought affects the plush suburbs of Boston.
As I say such things I confess I feel sorry for modern youth, who likely want disaster to liven up their lives, just as I once did. To such youth I say, you do not need Global Warming, to foster hopes of exciting ruination. You can do what I once did, and be a troublemaker.
A drought actually can be fun. I can prove it to you, for I lived through that 1960’s drought. I can show you my old diaries and tell you of the mischief I enacted, involving reservoirs it was illegal to fish and swim in. I managed to experience some exciting stuff at those shrunken reservoirs, despite the fact I lived in a boring suburb. People who know me have heard my tales too many times: The quicksand tale; the run-in-with-the-State-Police tale; the nearly-burn-down-the-neighborhood tale. But you’ve never heard them. Would you like to hear them?
What’s that? Do they conflict with the narrative about Global Warming? Well…maybe…just a bit. They do supply evidence the current drought isn’t the worst ever, and that the current drought may be caused by natural climate cycles, such as a 60-year AMO cycle. After all, the last drought was roughly sixty years ago, which suggests…. what’s that? I need to be censored? My blog should be shadow-banned? I’m a racist? Does that mean you don’t want to hear my three stories?
Oh, all right then. Have it your way. I’d hate to see you lose your nice, taxpayer-funded job, or be unable to afford your nice house midst the crowding trees in the emerald-green suburbs of Boston. But…what’s that I smell? Smoke?
Sunrise's Swansong 