Dear Global Warming,

I know I’m not supposed to like you. I’ve heard about your grandiose plans to melt the polar icecaps and flood coastal cities, your aspirations to destabilize global weather patterns and throw fragile ecosystems into upheaval, and your desire to have all of us, by the year 2070, living inside geodesic domes, whence we will gaze wistfully out at moribund deserts and dream of greener times. I know everyone says you’re bad, but damn it, I don’t care, because after six straight days of minus-25-degree weather I’m ready to throw myself into your arms.

Being a man-made ecological phenomenon, you might have some difficulty in commiserating with my plight. You’ve never had to walk to get groceries with the skin of your face threatening to crack like old plaster because the only sound your car made when you tried to start it was the dry death rattle of an engine that refused to turn over. You’ve never had to shovel out a driveway while being lashed by blowing snow, with your teeth clattering together in uncontrollable Morse code, while your mind is preoccupied with the concern that your numb ears might have already succumbed to frostbite, and that they could be turning purple in preparation of detaching from your head altogether. If you had suffered through these things, you would not doubt my sincerity. This cold snap has turned me into a half-mad combination of Faust and Sam McGee; I’m willing to do whatever it takes.

I’ll start burning coal in my wood stove. I’ll buy the most inefficient SUV that Detroit has the gall to put on the market. Whenever a friend says something like “There’s not much snow anymore, not like when we were kids” or the topic of climate change comes up, I’ll cite with authority one of the studies sponsored by Exxon that claim you don’t exist. So, please, let me join you over on the dark side. After all, there’s nothing (figuratively) cool about hypothermia, and the prospects of more arable land in the Arctic and balmy weather all year long sounds pretty good to me.

Sincerely,
Mike Ward

P.S. Please disregard my letter from last July’s heat wave. I was only joking.