January 8, 2023

It’s been nearly three weeks since the temperature was cold enough to freeze the slower edges of the North Branch River, when I captured this microcosm of crystalline ice and air and red willow. The next day dumped several inches of snow – enough to click on boots and skis and cross the trails in joy and relief at the white world. But subsequent days of temperatures in the 50s with accompanying rain eventually melted the ice and snow in the surrounding hills and valleys, except for where it lingered in pockets of deep, persistent shadow. Where am I? The climate of central Vermont begins to look and feel unrecognizable these past weeks, more like that of (I imagine) the Pacific Northwest or the mid-Atlantic states. Is it time to start mourning the loss of winter? At some point, we will need to grieve the changing climate as it renders the places we love unrecognizable – and, for some, uninhabitable – grasping for false starts of seasonality or scrolling wistfully through old photos.

These days seasons no longer come in sequence but are chopped up with heat, storms, blizzards, and droughts. It snowed in June, August, and September and thawed in January and February; record-breaking heat has been followed by record-breaking snow, and the average annual temperature has climbed. This is the signature of a warming climate.

–Gretel Ehrlich, The Future of Ice

Cold and snow and ice will come again this winter, but less reliably. Subtle and not-so-subtle fluctuations in the weather will accumulate, gaining momentum and volatility in my lifetime. By what degrees the climate continues to change depends on what we humans, collectively, do now to slow the devastation. Regardless, we will regret all we did not do.