Winter is always coming

Someone once said that today is a gift that's why it is called 'present'. When we look at the gruesome situation of our planet unfolding in front of us and because of us, I am not too sure if what humanity is trapped in could be called a present.

The tomorrow that scientists warn us about sounds bleak but today is not too kind to us either. I am sure, just like me, you also have noticed helplessly that the winter that we used to have in our childhood is not the same that we have today. Summer has been encroaching upon the months that used to belong to winter. What is winter today is what used to be called mild winter before.

Without many of us realising, somehow it has started to become a reality of our time that winter is always in the future. We live most of the time in the summer hoping that cooler days are coming. Some of the most vulnerable nations to the ravages of climate change include Pakistan and India. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that winter only comes for about 2 months or less. It used to be that right around the end of September or early October, people would start wearing sleeveless sweaters. I still remember those sleeveless sweaters were a thing for October. Now, you'd be lucky if you could survive October with just a fan on. I also remember Eid in March. We used to wear shalwar kameez and sweaters. You can wear a sweater in March now but I'd strongly advise grabbing some prickly heat powder from your local store.

Even when we watch movies from the 60s and 70s, we can clearly see in it that the weather patterns were different. People's reaction to those harsh winters were different than today. Some of us winter loving people even enjoy watching that snowstorm as therapeutic, such as the one in The Shining.

Now it seems like we are always waiting for winter to come and we blaze through it in a flash and then back to summer, which really starts around the end of January or early February. We are almost never in winter and summer is always with us. It is as if we are locked in summer just like humanity is locked in the present without being able to go back or forward. Today is not always a present.

I bought a long coat or jacket, depending on which nationality you have, about 12 years ago. Since I live in Houston, where the weather is always hot and humid, I was hoping to use the jacket in Islamabad if I ever visited in December. These are the only two cities I call home. I have been visiting every December ever since and I always bring that Jacket with me hoping I'd wear it and act like Don Corleone for a few days. It never gets cold enough for me to justify wearing it. In fact, I may have missed the boat because the chances of a cooler winter were much more 12 years ago than they are today.

The saddest part is not that I cannot wear that jacket but the immense impacts that would result on every aspect of life and business due to the extreme weather changes. Maybe I can sell that jacket so that I can buy myself a sophisticated mask because soon enough we are going to need those not because there would be pandemics necessarily, although that can happen too, but because the air wouldn't be clean enough for human consumption. We have so damaged the natural balance of this planet that humanity's mission very soon would no longer be to fix this planet but rather to leave it.

Amid the political wrangling and corporate profiteering, the cold may never come, but we can shake the dust on the very cold case of human role in this true crime story of climate change. A problem could only be solved once it is acknowledged.