El Nino is coming. Be afraid. Be very afraid…
…Not.
Many of you may remember a Saturday Night Live skit by dearly departed comedian Chris Farley as “El Nino.” He played a professional wrestling character that represented that weather system by saying: “I am El Nino…. Which is Spanish for … The Nino!”
That was 1997. Thirty years ago. And yes, we had aberrant weather systems even then. Can you believe it? Weather?
Oh, and yes, we are told by our weather “experts” that we will likely have another El Nino coming soon… to a California Central Coast near you.
Just like it always has.
Where did the term “El Nino” come from? Answer: South American fishermen/women in the 1600s. It was to honor the baby Jesus (El Nino) because the weather phenomenon occurred around Christmas.
They welcomed it because a good El Nino usually brought a lot of much-needed rain.
I’m pretty sure those south-of-the-border folks didn’t drive 1963 Chevy Impala SS low-riders at the time… so you can’t blame it on fossil fuels. The doomsayers, however, try. Oh, how they try.
But as Bob Dylan brilliantly observed, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
And you can’t blame the weather on anything but…. wait for it… the weather.
Still, it’s good to have a warning. And it’s good to heed that warning and prepare.
But there will be those who will blame all this on “man-made climate change.”
What is important here, is to acknowledge that the weather changes…. as it always has…. And that as humans we need to be vigilant, and adapt.
And take advantage of it.
We remember the Montecito mudslides in 2018. That was a horrible event. People died. Homes were destroyed. The mud and water crossed the 101. It was seen as an epic event that had never been seen before.
Except it had been seen before.
Similar “debris flows” had happened many times before in recorded history. It’s not something new. The blame can fall in many places, but… not on “man-made climate change”
No indeed.
Remember the land/mud slides in La Conchita in ‘95… and then again in 2005?
How about all the slides constantly plaguing Coast Highway 1 along the Big Sur? That road has been closed, more than open, for as long as I can remember.
Weather happens. The earth reacts. And people are affected.
This isn’t just about rain and mud. It’s about everything that occurs naturally. Heat. Cold. Drought. Wind. Earthquakes. Fire. You name it.
My parents had to evacuate their home on the La Vista Ridge during the Painted Cave fire on Route 154 in 1990. Yes, it was started by a human…. But fueled by years of neglect of not cleaning out the vegetation in the canyon, followed by a “sundowner” wind.
Weather.
And then there was the Pacific Palisades fire that, again, was started by a human but festered for days and ultimately destroyed an entire region because we didn’t clean out the brush and store enough water in the reservoirs to put out the flames. And the natural sundowner winds didn’t help things there either.
Weather.
And if you think that the recent hot (“record breaking”) weather is due to something “man” created… records show that in 1859 the temperature apparently reached 133 degrees in Santa Barbara; birds fell from the sky. Santa Barbara claimed the record for the hottest recorded temperature on this continent until 134 degrees was recorded in Death Valley in the 1930s. But if you scoff at that because perhaps the temperature gauges weren’t accurate then… consider that “record” temperatures have occurred ever since. Most not during a time when “man” could have had anything to do with it.
Weather.
But it’s fashionable to blame humans.
We’re going to be hearing lots of howling and wailing and blaming for the weather to come… which it always does. And maybe we’ll have some heavy stuff this year. Maybe not.
What I do know is that we won’t take advantage of it here in California. God’s gifts… or Mother Nature’s, if you will. Rain…. which for the low information voter is the same as “water.” And we need water. We need it for us humans. We need it to grow crops. We need it to put out fires.
We need to store it. Then use it to our benefit. Not some stupid smelt fish.
But once again, we’ll have to listen to doomsayers blaming everything on us. We’re the cause of weather. We need to curb our reliance on fossil fuels and gas-powered autos and using a leaf blower to blow a leaf all the way to Lompoc and yada yada yada….
Here’s my prayer.
Accept life as it happens. Use it to your advantage. Go with the flow.
And for the doomsayers… shut up. We don’t need your negativity.
Celebrate weather. And life. It’s all a gift… If you use it as intended.
Oh, and vote for common sense this November. Please.
And kick the doomsayers out.
Weather or not!
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👍👍👍👍👍👍‼️CJC