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I mean I remember building big ass snowmen in my childhood about 25 years ago and it being snowy all winter, nowadays we don't get more than 2 days of snow in a row and that happens like twice

It's astounding how little anyone seems to care

That, and the East Coast is getting smoke for the first time this past year. 20 years ago, the west didn't burn like that. Didn't have smoke like that. That was a very recent development in the past 10 years or so. Now the east is starting to burn like us.

I lived in the west and moved for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons was that the city nearly ran out of water twice within a handful of years. One year was a bad drought that depleted the river. The second, rain melted all the snow at once and caused floods that destroyed the water intakes for the city. Nobody could purify the water and the city had a day (1) of reserve water.

I moved to a more climate resilient city, but not everyone will be able to do that. We gotta take care of the planet better, because there's not another earth-like world within a couple hundred years of us, at least.

There are in fact meaningful trends in snow cover

Snow is very noticeable. It's weather that is very pretty and visual, but also impacts your daily life.

I remember how many snow days I had back in school, and how kids now often don't have any

It's very visceral and memorable weather - most other things are vague and easy to write off, or they're a life changing catastrophe that is basically up to luck.

If snow is what makes people understand, viscerally, "things are changing very, very fast", then that's fine

That's where we are right now. People generally believe it's happening, but only intellectually - they have no sense of scale or urgency. Most still think they'll be gone by the time it gets bad, and that it's a long term problem.

Any and every way you can make people understand this is a "right now" problem helps

The difference is, educated and rational people understand the gulf stream closing and it's implications. Those people are already on board and get it.

There are many people holding us back that don't get it and will hand wave this type of stuff away and continue holding their position. They'll come up with any excuse and reason they can, and it's easier to do so when it's something more abstract.

That's not as possible when it's "I can show you pictures of this or you can go there yourself and movies are already covering the effects." Things like New England not having snow for months is something literally every New Englander can look outside and see for themselves. It's way harder to argue against and will convince more people.

While you are right, that has been the case for a long time and we need to get more people on board. It's not one or the other, and we need to broaden the approach or this is going to continue being the educated minority vs the uneducated majority and it will continue to not change.

Yeah, in Southern Germany, we've had some of the heaviest snowfall in a long time this year, because of a local dip in temperatures below freezing (likely caused by gulf stream shenanigans), in combination with the rest of the planet boiling.

All the hot oceans were evaporating lots of water and when that wet air reached our cold pocket, it all just precipitated on top of us.

Climate change is scary only because it affects our way of life. Get over it, humans are like that. And the rich fucks who could change things (or at least not make it worse) were raised to have no empathy; they don't care for nature or if the world is liveable after their death.

Similar thing is happening where I live too. Living on the Great Lakes, we're usually being dumped on with -20 to -40 degree temps. Right now, we're barely below freezing and there's no snow on the ground. The Lake is struggling to freeze and we're at that time of year where it should be close to 100 percent ice cover by now.

We have a lot of events this time of year that are dependent on ice (Ice fishing tournaments, ice races, marathons where you hike across the frozen bay), and I think all of them have been canceled. It's crazy, I've never seen anything like it

I hope they keep that in mind during the summer. I don't know about where you live, but I'm in Portland, Oregon. I remember a decade ago people freaked out when it got above 90°F. Now we usually have at least 1-2 days where it reaches 110-115°. And we don't have AC, because historically it was never needed.