We can all agree the weather of the last month has been crazy. Christmas Eve we had the Worst Blizzard since 1977. New Year’s day was 50 degrees and raining. Get ready. This kind of crazy weather is going to be more and more common.

Scientists tell us that for the last 10,000 or so years we’ve been living with four fairly predictable seasons. Winter, spring, summer and fall each one follows the other. Sometimes spring is early, sometimes late but it always comes. Once a century or so there might be a hailstorm in July that wipes out most of the corn and wheat, but those events were rare. Most summers were frost free.

The stable system we have been enjoying consists of jet wtreams that circle the planet from West to East. There are four major ones — two subtropical and two polar. The Subtropical Jet Stream kept the Polar Vortex pretty much contained in the Arctic. When these currents are strong they are fairly stable and parallel each other.. For the last 10,000 years they’ve been pretty strong. Recently they have been weakening and becoming more erratic. This is a big deal.

The more energy in the system the more turbulence in the system. One measure of energy is temperature. On average every year for the last ten years has been the hottest year on records. The crazy weather we have been having is an example of turbulence in the system. When the Subtropical Jet Stream weakens it can fold on itself and dip down bringing cold Arctic air into the Southern US. Hard frosts in July and August are going to be more common, more prolonged and severe. Turbulence is wind storms of increasing power and frequency. Delivering electricity through wires strung on poles may become too expensive to maintain.

Precipitation is another thing that is changing. We have noticeably drier summers. Our winters are wetter and not as cold. We don’t know what the lack of snow will mean to the water table in the long run. We know that snow seeps into the ground gradually. Rain tends to run off, especially a hard rain after a dry spell. When air is hotter it holds more water. As the wind travels over the ground it pulls out so much water that every desert on the planet is growing. This means that the country of Somalia is being eaten by the Sahel Desert. The International Red Cross estimates 7 million people are on the brink of famine.

Why should we care about these people in Africa? We should care because that is the future of Iowa, Indiana and Utah. It isn’t Us “or” Them. It’s Us “and” Them. What we do now to help the people in Africa live with a changing climate will help us in the future.

The evidence of rising temperatures and rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is overwhelming. We know how much coal and oil we are pulling out of the ground. We know how much CO2 is going into the air.

We need to shift gears big and small. It doesn’t need to be painful. Infact we should look for ways that are playful, where all the parts work together. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. We are collecting it at the landfill and turning a profit. A barn could be designed to collect the methane cows fart. Ways of processing manure to generate gas have been known in China for thousands of years. We currently subsidize the Petro-Chemical industry. I am suggesting we divert some of that money into collecting energy from the wild.

The thing is we have been talking about Global Warming since 1980. Jimmy Carter put a solar water heater on the roof of the White House. He predicted home based energy would be the industry of the future. Nikoli Tesla said that energy was all around us. We just needed to learn how to collect it better. We need to move past coal and oil. Stop investing in it, stop drilling for it. Our kids are counting on us to shift gears. They know very well last summer was the coolest one of their lives.

Marie Tomlinson is a Fredonia resident.