By Stu Winters
A huge and dangerous winter storm recently struck the US upper Midwest and East accompanied by high winds and blizzard conditions along with bitter cold having wind chills ranging from 10 to 25 below zero in the lower elevations, down to 50 below in the mountains.
Coastal areas were also hit hard by rain including coastal flooding in Queens County, a borough of New York City, which necessitated “water rescues” of those trapped in homes and cars.
The Mid-Ohio Valley and central Appalachians experienced a dramatic temperature drop of near 40 degrees in just a few hours (!) followed by a period of strong winds and frigid wind chills.
In the vicinity of Buffalo in upstate New York (NY) 43 inches of snow fell according to the National Weather Service. This was on top of the snow already fallen due to a previous blizzard which struck several weeks ago. The Buffalo area is particularly susceptible to large precipitation events– termed the “lake effect” — due to its proximity to Lake Erie, a large body of water comprising what is termed the “Great Lakes”.
As of this writing 17 weather related deaths have been reported across NY State with more sadly anticipated.
NY Governor Hochul termed the after-effects of the storm “…a crisis of epic proportions”.
Even many locations in the southeast US – a generally warmer region — experienced the coldest Christmas in decades.
Approximately 250 thousand homes and businesses across the region experienced multiple power grid failures due to the storm which places in jeopardy the lives of millions of inhabitants since electricity is a necessary component for home heating. Aggravating the situation is the increased energy demand due to the extreme cold, and thus the need to transport natural gas, a key component of the heating infrastructure.
As climate science generally affirms, the warming of the planet causes the heating of the oceans (and fresh water bodies as well) which in turn results in increased evaporation generating additional moisture into the atmosphere thereby driving more intense storm events.
These climatological and weather-related crises are exacerbated by Increased economic burdens on working people: the skyrocketing cost of living which includes increased prices for energy, food, and thus the increasing inability to recover from these increasingly common events. Unemployment also plays into all this, much of it resulting from the attacks on living standards brought about by Covid repression since 2020 using the pretext of a “deadly virus”, sometimes termed the “Great Reset”.
Climate destabilization also produces “climate refugees” as a result of drought, flooding, and agricultural collapse. This has already begun in various regions of the globe including the US as survival becomes more and more tenuous for increasing numbers of people.
These cascading crises can and must be addressed through the scrapping of the outmoded capitalist system and its replacement by a system of rational development and planning democratically driven by an engaged working class and a re-distribution of wealth and resources from the heights of finance to those who do all the work and produce the real wealth of society – the proletarian masses.
Photo: Snow covered vehicles in the Elmwood Village area of Buffalo. http://www.nypost.com
Red Fire 