The weather has always been a ‘go to’ topic of conversation when we meet someone for the first time.
“It sure is hot today.”
“That snow is really coming down. “
“This wind is driving me crazy.”
“We could sure use some rain.”
“How’s the weather out your way?”
These openers for conversation may be a simple way to break the ice and get some small talk going. But small talk might very well provide an opportunity for BIG talk about climate change.
We might expand a comment on how hot it is into a discussion on rising temperatures in the arctic, which are causing glaciers to melt at an alarming rate.
Or we could discuss rain coming down in buckets from what weather forecasters call “rivers in the sky” - a new weather event. Opposite of too much is too little. There are rain patterns shifting in some areas, causing droughts, hunger, starvation, and loss of habitat.
Wind storms and hurricanes have been with us for years. But now their frequency and intensity have been ramped up to far worse destructive forces.
Wind is a particular destructive and perplexing element which has been the topic used by storytellers like Willa Cather in her book, Oh Pioneers!, and song writers, such as in THEY CALL THE WIND MYRIAH, from the musical "Paint Your Wagon".
