“Sledding and snowball fights are as out-of-date as hoop-rolling,” the New York Times sniffed in January of 2000:
Dr Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund was interviewed by the New York times in January 2000 as part of an article on the recent run of mild winters. As the article, which was about the ‘absence of snow’ in New York, reported:
Dr. Oppenheimer, among other ecologists, points to global warming as perhaps the most significant long-term factor.
AdvertisementOppenheimer even had a tear-jerking personal angle on the ‘absence of snow’ in modern winters. The New York Times writer mournfully announced that snow-balls fights are now as outdated as hoop-rolling, and quoted Oppenheimer on the pathetic spectacle of the unused sled in his stairwell, symbol of a warming world:
But it does not take a scientist to size up the effects of snowless winters on the children too young to remember the record-setting blizzards of 1996. For them, the pleasures of sledding and snowball fights are as out-of-date as hoop-rolling, and the delight of a snow day off from school is unknown.
‘I bought a sled in ’96 for my daughter,” said Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, a scientist at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. ”It’s been sitting in the stairwell, and hasn’t been used. I used to go sledding all the time. It’s one of my most vivid and pleasant memories as a kid, hauling the sled out to Cunningham Park in Queens.”
Uploaded to YouTube on January 1st, 2011: Skiing on Park Avenue:
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
I blame global warming.
I remember playing ice hockey on frozen ponds (in PA) from December through early March back in the 70′s. Time Magazine told us the fun would never end due to the coming of the next ice age. Now we have polar bears hugging hybrid car owners. As long as the “Progressive” can figure out how to con people out of their hard earned money, these types of weather scares will never end.
I don’t think it’s a matter just of progressives; and now that Global Climate Change is having chills, it may not even be weather for the next scare. Peak Oil has been a reliable scare for about a century now.
The vultures are ever-circling, watching the productive folk with an eye out towards snapping up some of that production.
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” – Albert Einstein.
Well, he’s an idiot for skiing on a public street behind a vehicle, but it’s nice to see Goreism take one in the eye.
Oppenheimer? A relative, perhaps a son or grandson, trying to make up for Old Dad’s part in the Great Atomic Apocalypse? My advice: join the real world, son. Old Dad’s work saved western civilization.
that’s Broadway, on the upper west side, NOT Park Avenue.
Skiing down the Park Avenue elevated ramp at Grand Central would have been cool though. Especially the slalom turn inside the New York Central building between 45th and 46th streets.
I hope he was using an old pair of rock skis.
Just think, if it had been raining instead of snowing, the skier could have been towed behind a boat. Cheers.
Just think if the skiier had had a tow hook, he could have been a trailer.
Chimo.
I suggest Mr. Oppenheimer -Oh excuse thats DoctorOppenheimer get a new crystal ball.
There were people swimming at Cranes Beach (Massachusetts) on New Year’s day. It was in the upper 50s. What’s your point?
And they did not have wet suits. Crazy? Probably. But it was eerily warm that afternoon and unusual for this time of year. Does that prove global warming? No. But your folksy skiing story doesn’t prove anything either. Just say’in.
What I find interesting is not the skiing, but the essentially self-imposed inability to cope. The snow has finally been hauled off, or melted on its own. Aside from what gives every appearance of a deliberate refusal by the Union to clear the snow; and the sudden decision to use the city’s largest Jewish cemetary as a dumping place for both snow and stranded cars [with damage to the gravestones]; there is the matter that the Sanitation Department workers who are in charge of both plowing snow AND picking up trash, are not doing the latter. From the NYC media, there are tens of thousands of tons of trash bags on the streets uncollected since before the storm, packs of rats are out in broad daylight, and trash trucks are seen lined up along streets, parked with the engines idling, and the crews drinking coffee all day.
People died because ambulances could not get through the unplowed streets. Bloomberg publicly praised the head of the Sanitation Department [responsible for the failed plowing] and promised that he would have a job as long as Bloomberg was Mayor. The head of the EMS [ambulance service] was just fired, because they could not save those people.
Everything is backwards there. It is not like they have not had major blizzards before in NYC. They have, and with the same existing plans and resources they have used before to handle them they could have dealt with this one. It is not that this was the biggest blizzard they have every had. They had a bigger one in the 1990′s that was cleared in a few days.
There is another blizzard heading for NYC right now. Much smaller than the Christmas Blizzard. It will be interesting to see if the City actually decides to do something with this one to save themselves, and how the residents of NYC react either way.
Subotai Bahadur
Isn’t man-made global warming wonderful? It is the scapegoat when it is too warm and it is also the scapegoat when it is too cold.
Where is Al Gore and his hot air when you need him?
I see how this works Ed.
RE: #12. Charles Martel
Al Gore is embroiled in a modern day Battle of Tours—as a defensible political idea global warming has reached it zenith and apparently is now in retreat. (However, it is more likely he is off somewhere getting a massage.)
God save our republic.