It’s spring in the Midwest. The only problem? It’s midwinter | CNN
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Winter has gone missing across the Midwest and Great Lakes, and time is running out to find it. Dozens of cities are on track for one of the warmest winters on record, making snow and ice rare commodities.

Winter has gone missing across the Midwest and Great Lakes, and time is running out to find it. Dozens of cities are on track for one of the warmest winters on record, making snow and ice rare commodities.

Several cities are missing feet of snow compared to a typical winter, ice on the Great Lakes is near record-low levels and the springlike temperatures have even spawned rare wintertime severe thunderstorms.

A classic El Niño pattern coupled with the effects of a warming climate are to blame for this “non-winter” winter, said Pete Boulay, a climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Winter has become the fastest-warming season for nearly 75% of the US and snowfall is declining around the globe as temperatures rise because of human-caused climate change.

    • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
      19·
      10 months ago

      but why would it ramp up around the election? the pieces you cite seem to be lone-wolf attacks with no organization or real plan.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
        7·
        10 months ago

        Likely because elections are politically charged events, and they always drive an increase in politically motivated crimes.

        Given that a preponderance of these recent acts have been from right wing persons, often associated with beliefs that they want to trigger a destabilizing event for society, and that the last election had at least one notable act of right wing violence, it’s not unreasonable to predict that this election will be at least as decisive.
        Given that, concern about escalating threats to power infrastructure, with right wing groups have specifically threatened, seems prudent.

        It’s not “elections make us hate transformers”, but elections cause violence, one of the most violent groups repeatedly and specifically threatens power infrastructure, and this election is going to have more nastiness than usual, most likely.

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
            6·
            10 months ago

            The FBI has not issued a specific threat advisory for election driven violence against power infrastructure.

            DHS has issued broad warnings about both infrastructure threats and election threats, and generalized details of specific plots involving each independently.

            Conjecture isn’t quite the right word. This isn’t forming a conclusion based on incomplete information.
            This is making a prediction based on prior trends. B is is correlated with C. A causes B. Therefore A happening should make you anticipate an increase in C.

            • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
              07·
              10 months ago

              i’m not trying to be difficult here, i just find that there are a lot of outlandish predictions (“trump is the end of democracy”, anyone?) and i just think there should be strong evidence for claims like that. as it is, i wouldn’t be surprised if there were no provable right-wing infrastructure attacks this year, but i wouldn’t be surprised if there were. it’s a cointoss, so saying it’s going to happen just can’t be justified in my mind.

              • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
                4·
                10 months ago

                Except no one said it’s “going to”. Statements about the future are always probable, and all of the statements in this thread have been probable.

                There’s a difference between being evidence based and being willfully blind.
                Multiple intelligence community warnings about rising risk of right wing violence, multiple warnings about said violence targeting infrastructure, and warnings about expectations that violence will increase as we get closer to the elections makes it an extremely small logical step to “maybe those people we think are going to do more stuff will do it in the way that we’ve noticed they’ve been doing more often, particularly now that we’re approaching a key time for stuff to happen”.

                And, for the record, bringing up a president notably associated with a violent mob storming the Capitol building, who recently joked about wanting to be a dictator and promised retribution on reporters and political opponents is not a good way to punctuate your scepticism of a threat.
                Talking about suspending the constitution makes it a bit less “outlandish” to say that the person is a threat to democracy.

              • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
                3·
                10 months ago

                outlandish predictions (“trump is the end of democracy”, anyone?)

                On one hand he directly said he would be a dictator.

                On the other hand, he says a lot of things, often contradicting things he said a few days before…