Climate Change
photo: Richard Harris
Back in the old days, when I was a kid, we usually had about three days of snow a year in Brussels and it almost never snowed before January.
It also froze very few days.
It has been said that climate change will cause colder winters in the Temperate Zones.
Today, November 30th it snowed. And this week it is supposed to be freezing all week and go down to minus 9 Celsius.
It's not even Winter yet!
Back in the old days, when I was a kid, we usually had about three days of snow a year in Brussels and it almost never snowed before January.
It also froze very few days.
It has been said that climate change will cause colder winters in the Temperate Zones.
Today, November 30th it snowed. And this week it is supposed to be freezing all week and go down to minus 9 Celsius.
It's not even Winter yet!
When I was a kid, and I was playing in the forest, diving through piles of dead leaves, or collecting specimens in nature, turning over dead branches etc, I was never worried about meeting a poisonous bug because I was in Belgium and up here in Western Europe we didn’t have those nasty things. I used to think, “ At least I don’t have to worry about Black Widows like I would if I were in The States.” You have no idea how liberating it was to know that there was nothing lethal out there.
Well, I’m not a kid anymore and Arabel, the Belgian Arachnological Society, has announced that “There is a real possibility that the Black Widow will become acclimatized in Belgium.” Over the last two years, twenty spiders have been found here, with cocoons. Since Black Widows are notorious for surviving winters by moving indoors, and winters in Belgium are not very rigorous, I guess I was part of one of the last carefree generations.
Well, I’m not a kid anymore and Arabel, the Belgian Arachnological Society, has announced that “There is a real possibility that the Black Widow will become acclimatized in Belgium.” Over the last two years, twenty spiders have been found here, with cocoons. Since Black Widows are notorious for surviving winters by moving indoors, and winters in Belgium are not very rigorous, I guess I was part of one of the last carefree generations.