Slow Season in the North Country
January 18th, 2007 by Carbon CoalitionYesterday New Hampshire Public Radio’s (NHPR) “The Exchange” interviewed North Country residents who are feeling the effects of the warm weather this winter season. Dr. David Brown, state climatologist, said 2006 was the warmest winter ever recorded in NH. Brown explained that although the warm weather in December was most likely influenced by the jet stream, we should still recognize it as a just another factor in a growing warm weather trend.
Hotel vacancy rates are high, cross-country ski and snowmobile club memberships are down, and even retail sales are off by an estimated 30%. Edith Tucker a reporter for the Coos County Democrat said that everyone up north is feeling the effects. She explained that even an unlikely candidate, a potato farmer, is suffering from a significant drop in sales. Restaurants aren’t buying his potatoes because there aren’t any snowmobilers and skiers buying their french fries or hash browns. Paul Bergeron, president of the Pittsburg Ridge Runners Snowmobiling Club, has lived in the North Country for over 30 years and he’s never seen it as quiet as it’s been this season.
Word has it that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “shaking up traditional committee fiefdoms” as she is pushing to create a committee that will recommend legislation to cut greenhouse gases. This special committee has generated some tension because it would “sidestep two of the House’s most powerful Democratic committee bosses,” but Henry Waxman, one of the proposed chairmen believes “the existing committees can deal effectively with global warming. But I can also understand why the speaker believes it’s important to highlight this issue.” (Read the entire article from the New York Times here.)
