IT SNOWED!

I was not expecting snow, but hadn't checked the weather all week.  The night was noisy; fascia rumbling in the wind, attic turbines whirring, whistling eaves, jangling chimes, 1 cat snoring, another one sneezing, but of all those sounds, no sound of snow falling.
The world is quiet, now.  Snow seems to absorb all the sound and with no cars moving outside, it is like being alone in the world.  Just me and my heater.
If you check the internet there are arguments about global warming although why that starts every time it snows is bizarre.  The "nothing has changed" crew apparently thinks it is proof of something. All those firsts in recorded history; tsunami's that wipe out populated coasts, hurricanes, massive tornadoes, none of that proves anything, but snow is proof.
In geologic eras, neither are really proof of anything.  If you are a animal that is currently adapting to living in an urban jungle instead of becoming extinct, you probably think the idea of humans changing the earth is pretty believable.  The population of the planet hit 1 billion about 1800.  It had doubled to 2 billion by 1927 and doubled again by 1974.  But in the last 12 years we have added another billion, bringing us to 7 billion. A billion in 12 years vs. a billion in 123 years.  It is estimated that it will take 200 years to reach 14 billion, but that is if we continue to have declining growth rates. In other words, if nothing changes in the next 200 years.
When I was a child, it was reported on the TV that by 2000, we would all have a life expectancy of 100 years.  (I realize we also expected to be flying along the highways in flying cars and vacationing on Mars)  Expectations stated now are about 75 for men and 80 for women.  In 1960 it was 68 for men and 73 for women in the U.S.  Between then and now,  we have had multiple wars.  We have HIV,  and Hepatitis C.  We have drugs that don't just make you feel good, they make you old in a pretty short time.  We have drug-resistant bacteria, terrorism, WMD, germ warfare, chemical weapons, and a whole lot of organized crime.  None of those increase life expectancy.
We will still have people that make it to 100.  I have pictures of three different relatives that became centenarians.  All of them died before 1940.  The government in this fine country is predicting very regularly that the baby boomers will bankrupt social security.  Too many old people getting pay-outs at the same time. No one griped that too many young baby boomers were paying in at the same time, and no one is pointing out that the baby boomers are not really racing to 100.  They have done a lot; first generation to make alcohol be NOT their ONLY drug of choice, first generation to get HIV from needles, and Hep. C. from needles and don't forget that weird time when we didn't know about either, so we passed out both viruses in the blood supply.  First generation to never go to war (when did we last have a war in this country?) but die in the military at the hands of the enemy(think police action, its only a dream), first since penicillin to die of sepsis despite antibiotics.  Between that and the environmental changes and the healthcare inadequacies, they might be the first to not have any centenarians.  We won't know that until 2040.

But today, there is no global warming and the world is soft and quiet.