With a strangely quiet sun cyle and record breaking cold snaps this summer, some think we are headed for an ice age.

Before you laugh, know that the US Pentagon takes a coming ice age very seriously, as it would greatly impact national security.

There are also many, well respected weather scientists who believe we are alreay in pre ice age conditions. www.iceagenow.com

Personally I have no idea what to think about this, but I thought it would be interesting to imagine life as if we really were in the middle of an ice age. I would assume that no one aspect of our lives would remain the same.

August 2020

It was mid August, but already fingers of autumn caressed the dewy grass with cool fingers.

The wind shifted, and came out of the north, and the bite of cold air stung my face and eyes. The glacier was only a few hundred miles away now. It was coming closer everyday, and every winter it grew larger. Like some prehistoric beast you could hear it grinding and growling its way south. That noise never stopped and it drove people to insanity. It swallowed all in its path. Most all of Canada was now under 2 miles of thick ice, everything ground to dust, unrecognizable.

The northern US was ready to receive the refugees of Canada, but no one had any idea how massive the exodus would be. Millions of people poured over the border, carrying along what they could of a life that no longer existed. There were tent cities set up as far away as Oklahoma, and still it was not enough, not nearly enough.

Those people the glacier chased out of their homes had about them a weariness of the soul, a haunting of the eyes that hung over them like a foul mimosa. For them, the glacier had finally won, had taken all they worked a lifetime for.

It all started small, like most things that have a monumental impact. With that very first tiny, beautiful, pristine snowflake, so many would have their fates sealed. That winter of 2011 was snowier than usual. It soon became “normal” to have snowfalls of 6 feet. Houses and businesses were alternately buried and then shoveled of snow. Roof after roof collapsed causing a great loss of life. No one was ready or could have imagined a winter like the winter of 2011.

As bad as that winter was, the following spring and summer were worse, because there was virtually no spring or summer. The cold and snow continued as people looked on in fear and amazement. It was then that the first homes were abandoned , it occupants too tired to continue clearing and digging out from the snow.

Villages and small cities became inaccessible because there was not enough money left to constantly remove snow from the roads. Only main highways linking large cities stayed open and those stayed that way only with much work and great expense.

People starved because there was simply no way to get out from under all the snow that fell and get to a place where food was available. If they were able to dig their way out of their homes, they then faced miles and miles of unplowed roads before they would get to a highway where the roads were still open. Even though food and supplies flowed in from the US, it all stood there, frozen in its place, going nowhere.

Entire families laid down together once last time, went to sleep and let the cold and ice claim them. In the spring, as the newly formed glacier plunged its slippery way across the land, those families became a part of the ice and cold. Became part of the glacier. It was not unusual at all to see dismembered body parts at the foot of the glacier….stained a ghastly blood rusty red!

Massive snowfall alternated with sub zero temperatures, producing perfect ice age conditions. Of course the ice age did not take everyone by surprise. As early as 1975 the US pentagon took a potential ice age very seriously. Even with the global warming bru-ha-ha reaching a fever pitch there were plenty of scientist who claimed we were due for an ice age. Add to that, with a strangely quiet sun, it all spelled out one horrifying conclusion….ICE AGE! www.iceagenow.com

All these things do not really matter now, what matters is survival. It is almost pitiful how hard humans try to survive. Most would be better off just throwing in the towel and perishing, but that is not our instinct. And so Canada and the US began to look at balmy Mexico with its fertile farmlands as a way out. But first they would have to do something about the people who lived there, just as they did something about the Native Americans who had once lived in North America.

In the meantime, more and more power plants went down and the northern part of the country was plunged into darkness. Conditions became truly miserable for most people as the heating resources became impossible to deliver. People froze to death every night, even in the middle of summer they froze to death in their beds, frantically shivering to preserve their meager lives one minute, the next minute gone.

No one really knows how many died that first horrifying winter and summer of the ice age. After that, summer returned, cold with colder rain and sleet, but summer nevertheless, my garden somehow thrived and grew precious food for the family. However, we all cast a wary eye northward to the great hungering beast, posed on the ready, just waiting to get the chance to devour us. Growing larger with winter snows, retreating a bit with spring and summer, never knowing for sure what would happen next.

Often people would think back fondly and remember our days of global warming, and many would welcome it back. At least we had food to eat, and our lives unfolded in predictable ways.

In the end, man is arrogant to think that he, a little ant in the vast scheme of things, would have the ability to drastically change the weather for good or bad. Maybe one day we will have control of the weather, but it will never be complete, and it could very well cause more problems than solutions.

I guess we will have to rely on what our ancestors relied upon when it comes to the weather. There is a word for it….and that word is “prayer”.