The country has seen a wacky winter that can only be summed up as totally bizarre. Schools, cities, counties and even whole states have been shut down from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, Ga., due to winter snow storms, which to native Mainers like myself are just "dustings," but to people out of New England, these dustings create slick road conditions that make the entire transportation community just plain idiotic and reckless. While Florida's orange crops freeze over and Washington, D.C., gets two feet of snow, Mainers up north are cautiously emerging from their winter shells to feel the warm breezes and startlingly gorgeous sun that is suggestive of a premature spring. Southern Maine received a huge storm two weeks ago that cut off power to hundreds of thousands of residents, including my own family, but the deluge of rain (instead of snow because of the warm temperatures) caused massive flooding all around the state.

 

Spring usually begins to peek out after spring break, but this year Maine's winter was cut short around the beginning of February — a month and a half too soon! I am unsure what this means for the country's ecological state, but I do know that the annual re-emergence of migrating birds has already started here in Maine even with the lack of significant food source. It is situations like these that force the country to realize we are staring down the barrel of climate change, which is set to trigger disastrous consequences in the future. I think we should take this spring to green up our daily lives, understanding the larger impacts of our actions to the global community.