oh - no

i was outside shoveling this morning, cleaning up the ends of the sidewalks near the street so that folk could trudge through and not climb over the bank left by the street plows.  i had shoveled last night…the larger effort.  we received about 5 inches of snow yesterday.  the weather snarled traffic and canceled plane trips.  my son gets to stay in town an extra couple of days…his return trip was canceled.  while shoveling, and earlier while taking the dog for a morning walk, different people commented to me about the snow.  four of the six people i encountered this morning commented about all the snow as evidence of global warming.  they lamented, one warning of future doom.  i commented about the beauty of the snow blanketing the branches like cotton, sides of trees covered with snow while other sides dark and uncovered of white.  other than voices and the occasional car, the morning was quiet, sound deadened by the blanket of snow.  i honestly could not contend the snowfall was due to global warming.  there are too many opinions abounding in both directions.  and, while i care about the earth, and do my part to limit trips in the car, and i recycle…to spend time insisting the snow was due to global warming limited the snow and effect and beauty to some cancer-like plague upon the earth.  i just liked shoveling the snow.  the adverse comments, contending global warming, while of concern, limited my ability to keep pretending i was a snowplow clearing the path for folks to walk on my sidewalk…folks who insisted that the cause of my efforts was global warming.