Snow in wrong places

Did you know that in the Inuit language, that is the lingo of Eskimos or Greenlanders speak, there are at least three dozen different words for snow if I recall it correctly. The different words are used to express the various forms of snow all from wet sleet and flaky crystal snow to dry powder snow. Amazing to have so many ways to describe something that to most people on earth just is something white, that they have never experienced and only seen in pictures.

Lately there have been snowstorms in very surprisingly wrong areas around the globe like southern China, Morocco and Greece unheard of, at least in this part of the world. Oh yes there has been snow on high mountain tops on glaciers in countries there normally is but an occasional snowfall but as the glaciers are melting away with the global warming is it not odd that snow begins to fall in uncustomary or should I say the wrong places?!?

And here in Nordic countries there is a lack of it, well has at least been until now here in Finland. Which has been mended lately with snow falling from the sky and the whole country has now finally been covered in this white blanket of beautiful snow.

Still we have had a lack of snow and many skiing event have had to be postponed until better weather and the skiing weather was not particularly good when most of the schools had their winter holidays a couple of weeks ago. Same goes with the world cup in cross country skiing. And as the weather has been unusually warm some skiing events have been moved into big towns to please the crowds apparently in order to make more money on the events. But how good is this for the environment, to make artificial snow, make tracks on the streets in the centre of big cities to get more coverage?

I just saw FIS in the middle of the Stockholm, the Swedish capital, and another was televised from Drammen Norway. At least there seemed to have been some snow in the surrounding countryside as far as I can tell from what was seen on the TV. Btu in Stockholm there was absolutely no snow to be seen except on the tracks.

What does this cost then, regarding the energy it takes to create the fake artificial snow, to make the water that fist has been purified into drinking water freeze into snow. Store the snow cold in order to gather the required amount to build the track, move the snow with trucks on site for making the track of snow in and in time for the competition. And make some more just in case the one used on the tracks melts before the event. The waste and garbage the people attending to see the skiers dispose of freely around them, more seldom into the dustbins acquired for this purpose. The portable toilets to move to site and from site, empty and clean, dispose of waste. The selling of the traditional junk alimentation such as hotdogs, hamburgers, chips, crisps sweets and candy, and beverages like beer and sodas, and you need straws, paper wipes, mugs and wrappers to serve them which create an immense waste mountain to dispose of. And with a bigger crowd a bigger waste.

I am not saying people should not have fun, but if we really are serious about lowering their carbon oxide emissions in order to try save the planet earth, maybe some more consideration should be taken to these matters.

But question remains, is the weather warming up, really like they say, or is the weather just going through its’ natural cycle of heating up and cooling down as it does. How can be really sure that the weather is not cooling down as some experts claim and the weather climates are not just moving around and changing places?

Still according to the Laplanders living up north this is so far the warmest winter in a century.