I've often wondered how it would be if you had chosen weather reporting as a career (in the "old days" of course) because you wanted to do something safe, non-controversial and apolitical. You know, in the old days, weather reporting was for nerdy types. Nothing political about weather, right?

Not so today. Weather reporting just drips (sorry!) with politics. In almost any discussion of weather now, the subject quickly turns from weather to climate, and from a literal climate to a political climate.

Such a political subtext is clearly present in Monday's installment of a regular Inquirer series by atmospheric writer Anthony R. Wood, titled This year's outlook: Little snow:

The Northern Hemisphere's total snow cover (defined as geographic extent as opposed to, say, depth or frequency) has dropped off precipitously in the last three years, according to the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, one of the nation's prime sources of snow data.

David Robinson, the geography professor who runs the lab, has a comprehensive satellite-era dataset dating to 1966, and he also has looked at surface records going back a century.

One set of numbers jumps out: the recent, rapid and "unprecedented" retreat of spring snow cover, Robinson says. "The melt season has come earlier."

The most likely suspect? The global warming trend that has accelerated in the last 30 years.

Things also look a bit different in today's Inquirer:

No one was calling it the "Blizzard of '07," but Philadelphia recorded its first measurable snow of the season yesterday.

Flakes that filtered into the area in late morning built to a slow but steady fall by afternoon and into the evening. By 8:30, reported totals ranged from 3.5 inches in Glassboro, Gloucester County, and 3 inches in Wilmington, to at least an inch in most of the Philadelphia area, including 1.3 inches at Philadelphia International Airport.

There were no deaths, few injuries, and little reported trauma. Icy roads, however, were causing the fender-benders to pile up, area police reported.

"Kinda crazy out there," said a state police dispatcher in Media.

I was lucky, but in general, how are you supposed to avoid being rearended? That and having a stone crack the windshield are the kind of things that have nothing to do with how well or how safely you drive. Had I been hit, it would have been the second snow-related rear-ender for me. And that makes me look like a bad driver, doesn't it? (Interestingly, I knew how dangerous it was, for I had driven to a shopping center and experimented in the nearly-empty parking lot earlier. I simply had no control unless I drove slowly. Why can't other people realize that?)

The last time I was rearended, it was my "fault" for stopping at a light which had turned red. I speculated that sometimes, it is better to do the wrong thing:

Had I been a bad boy and ran the red light, I'm sure I would have made it through, and I wouldn't be facing the bureaucratic hassle I do now. (I don't want to be driving around getting estimates, and then arguing over how much my nine year old car is worth. Plus my damned back is sore, and the last thing I want is to go to a doctor or chiropractor!)

So what's the unpleasant utilitarian moral lesson?

I'm wondering if sometimes it's better to just do the wrong thing. . .

If there's one thing worse than having shit happen, it's when you see it coming and have to watch it happen anyway.

Sheesh, now I find myself skidding off into another discussion of politics....

I should stick with weather.

That's not political, right? My mom always told me that in polite society, talking about the weather is always "safe."

Of course, had she lived to see the rise of AGW alarmism, she might have changed her views.

I mean, check out the Inquirer's Election Day weather report:

For the eighth time in nine years, Election Day will arrive in Philadelphia before the first frost.

Indeed, not only has that first-freeze date slid in recent years from late October to early November, the warming trend has intruded into the heart of the cold season.

We're experiencing more and more days - and nights - where the temperature stays above freezing, even in the dead of winter.

[...]

...an Inquirer analysis shows that in the 20-year period ended in 1980, temperatures fell to 32 degrees or lower an average of 98 days a year. Since 1990, the annual average is 82 days.

The trend measured at Philadelphia International Airport parallels what is going on elsewhere in the nation. Forecasts for the coming winter suggest it will continue at least one more year.

And last month turned out to be the warmest October on record in Philadelphia. Temperatures averaged 64.5 degrees Fahrenheit - 7.3 degrees above normal and a full degree more than the previous record.

Taken together, these trends almost certainly represent local fallout of some sort from worldwide warming.