Ross: We should just harvest the frigid polar vortex
Jan 30, 2019, 8:24 AM
People walk through a snowstorm in downtown Jackson, Mich., Monday, Jan. 28, 2019. (J. Scott Park/Jackson Citizen Patriot via AP)
(J. Scott Park/Jackson Citizen Patriot via AP)
The polar vortex is back, and it’s angrier than ever.
“States of emergency have been declared. Freeze warnings go as far south as Gainesville, Florida,” reports CBS’s Jeff Glor.
Temperatures are so cold in parts of North Dakota and Minnesota that stepping outside for five minutes could mean frostbite.
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As one CBS reporter stated: “Don’t breathe too deeply, don’t talk too much; could actually hurt your lungs.”
Of course, the internet will say “so what do you think about global warming now.”
Well, I think the polar vortex is a huge opportunity to tame it. Because when the air is so cold it can give you frostbite in five minutes, that means it can freeze water really, really fast.
It means you get huge amounts of ice and snow for free. So much that, in places where you have the space, you can save it and use it for air conditioning in the summer. Like people used to do.
It’s being done right now in Sweden and Japan — creating artificial mini glaciers from plowed snow, and freezing giant insulated ice ponds that can keep nearby buildings cool through August.
So if this is our new normal, why not roll with it? Why not harvest the extreme cold in the winter and then just laugh at the extreme heat in the summer?
And maybe the day will come when a headline like “One of the coldest nights ever recorded,” is actually good news.
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Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
