The Smorgasbord of Douglas Bell

The Smorgasbord of Douglas Bell

Too Much Analysis of an Overextended College Student Dwelling in a Capitol City

Archive for category Washington DC

[Series of YouTubes] Snowpocalypse vs. Global Warming?

Feb 15

Posted by Douglas Bell in State/National/World Issues, Video, Washington DC | No Comments

This is a spectacular video clip by Rachel Maddow. Despite the fact that this has been a record-breaking winter here in Washington, DC, Rachel easily disassembles the ridiculous argument that global warming can’t be real because we had snow. Then she brings on Bill Nye (yay!) who takes it a step further by explaining how the snowpocalypse was caused by El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean, and that El Niño is actually caused by–you guessed it–warming oceans.

So enjoy this video as much as I did. And if you like basketball, you’ll probably also enjoy this one.

Riding Out the Snowpocalypse

Feb 7

Posted by Douglas Bell in My Thoughts, Washington DC | No Comments

Warning: I don’t really know where I’m going with this blog post, so bear with me. But I do know that I wanted to get one out, so here goes.

I lived through my first ever snowfall last December. Washington, DC had its first snow of the season on Saturday, December 5, and I actually got to be out in it–while the snow was falling–for the first time in my life. It was certainly an interesting experience, as I watched from my dorm room and trekked out in it briefly.

I flew home for Winter Break on Tuesday, December 15, rather late considering that my final final was the Friday before. But just three days later the huge nor’easter became the big news, hitting DC with a blizzard that dumped a foot to a foot and a half of snow on DC, crippling the Metro, canceling flights, etc. And thus my primary line of winter break smalltalk became about how lucky I was to make it out of DC unscathed before the storm hit.

Turns out that storm was just a warm-up act. In what has been dubbed as either the “snowpocalypse” or “snowmageddon” (I prefer the format, President Obama apparently prefers the latter), American University received 27.5 inches of the white stuff, compared with just 16 inches during the mid-December storm. This in addition to the 6 inches we had already received last Saturday (1/30) and about two inches we received overnight on Tuesday (2/2).

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow last Tuesday and I’m going to begrudgingly give him some credit this time around.
Read the rest of this entry »