Weather or not
Limits of forecasting foresight should be accepted
MATT PETERSON is a
senior English and news
editorial major and a
Daily Nebraskan colum
nist.
Every so often, nature sees fit to
remind mankind of its relative
insignificance to the grand scheme
of a giant rock spinning through
space.
In Nebraska, this revelation is
usually coupled with an assertion of
the most insignificant profession
claimed by that rock’s inhabitants -
weather forecasting.
Before the weather forecasters
of the world unite against me, let
me assure our population of bur
geoning meteorology majors that
my tongue is as firmly lodged in my
cheek as a car in a foot-deep snow
bank.
And while sidestepping contro
versy around here seems to be as
easy as avoiding any mention of
’80s pop culture (“The A-Team”
was far superior to any of its con
temporaries - hey, I want people to
talk about my column, too), the last
thing I want is to wake up tomorrow
to find Willard Scott’s long-lost
toupee on my pillow, gangland
style.
Perhaps, if at all possible, we
should set aside the short run for a
moment. Granted, neither the
weather channel’s “occasional flur
ries possible” nor the Omaha
World-Herald’s “rain changing to
snow by tonight” could possibly
imply 13 inches of snow, mass
arboreal destruction and citywide
power outages by Sunday morning.
And even if weather forecasts
had been slightly more accurate,
what would have been gained other
than a surplus of bottled water and
batteries?
Sitting in the frigid darkness of
my apartment on Sunday night, I
can’t deny an obsessive desire to
peg Jim Flowers with a snowball,
which, by all accounts, shouldn’t
even have existed. The weather
forecaster is an easy and oft-abused
target, but placing the blame for this
weekend’s freak storm would
require a trip to the South Pacific to
badmouth an enormous mass of
warm water named El Nino.
Let us forget the weatherman’s
suspect distinction as a daily
prophet and consider instead the
meteorologist as Chicken Little. For
the past few decades, glorified
weather forecasters have assumed a
dubious station as modern-day
Nostradamuses.
The slew of buzzwords generat
ed by this trend have translated well
into the rhetoric of politics, thus
giving our nation’s leaders some
thing popular, and decidedly
ambiguous, to fight for. Vice
President A1 Gore has deemed such
environmental crises to be “the
most important issues that this
country will have to face in the next
decade and the next century.” On
President Clinton’s recent jaunt to
South America, environmental con
cerns were used to obscure the trip’s
primary goal of encouraging sup
port for free trade.
Of the host of buzzwords
spawned by the meeting of meteo
rological and political minds, three
phrases immediately come to mind:
the ozone layer, the “greenhouse
effect” and, most recently, El Nino.
According to some experts, the sky
is assuredly falling; others contend
that there is no cause for alarm.
With so many duly accredited
little red hens and pompous roosters
arguing over the fate of the heavens,
it’s no wonder the environmental
question has become rhetorical in
nature.
As recently as the 1970s, the
most pressing ozone-related con
cern was that this noxious gas was
one of the main ingredients in urban
air pollution. Now we are told that a
giant “hole in the sky” over
Antarctica will one day expand and
expose us all to deadly ultraviolet
radiation.
The rate of this expansion,
according to the National Academy
of Sciences, could be anywhere
between 2 percent and 40 percent in
the long run, and potential conse
quences range from an increased
rate of skin cancer among
Antarctica’s penguin population to
the early onset of the next ice age.
Increasing atmospheric levels of
carbon dioxide have sparked several
hypotheses about global warming
and the “greenhouse effect.”
Average global temperatures are
rising at a rate of about 0.2 degrees
Fahrenheit per decade. Many scien
tists believe global warming will
eventually result in an increasing
number of disastrous climatic
events such as blizzards and hurri
canes. Others contend that global
warming could serve to hold off the
coming of the next ice age.
One need look no further than
last weekend to prove the ambiguity
of El Nino’s anticipated conse
quences. According to many local
experts, this massive weather anom
aly was to have very little effect on
Midwestern weather patterns.
Back to the Magic Eight Ball.
In light of the ambiguity of such
doomsday forecasts, maybe we
should take note that in the story of
Chicken Little, the sky did fall,
killing everyone in the barnyard,
including the excitable hen herself.
But considering this fable’s
rather obscure moral, perhaps we
should instead accept the limita
tions of mankind’s foresight and
remember that, in many newspa
pers, the weather forecast shares a
page with the daily horoscopes.
Ice, ice, baby
UNL should consider student safety on slippery days
LANE HICKENBOTTOM
is a senior news-editorial
major and a Daily
Nebraskan photographer
and columnist.
Three cheers for administration
for canceling two days of class for
our safety!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
OK, enough of that.
It really is impressive that they
made the right decision that safety
is more important than education
for at least two days. After all, an
accidental campus death would put
a serious curb on die learning
potential for that individual.
Classes will have to do a little
catching up to stay on schedule, but
that will easily happen.
But before Chancellor Moeser
and company get too much credit
for calling classes for the unheard
of amount of time of two days, they
should keep in mind the major rea
son they called off class when
future winter storms wreck havoc
on campus.
Safety.
That two-syllable, six-letter
word granted students the fall
break for which they have been
asking.
So why is it that when the tem
peratures dip down below zero, the
wind is howling through the capital
city with enough ferocity to rip
through the thickest layer of goose
down, and there is a sheet of ice
layering campus, sending students
to their tailbones right and left, we
still have school?
Never mind hypothermia. Even
though prolonged exposure to cold
can cause serious health problems
including death, this is Nebraska,
and anybody smart enough to be
pursuing a college degree ought to
know not to wear shorts when there
is a wind-chill factor of 50 degrees
below zero. Bundle up and go to
class.
More than chilling tempera
tures, ice is a major issue.
Even yesterday when the side
walks were mostly clear, the first
thing I saw when I arrived on cam
pus was a fellow StarTran passen
ger fall smack on her hind side.
She fell hard, too.
She just sat there for a few
moments, probably in shock,
before she determined it was worth
her efforts to get back up.
School should not be canceled
every time there is a small early
morning patch of ice. If that were
the case, no state east of the West
Coast nor north of the Mason
Dixon Line should even support a
university, as it would be closed
November through February.
But unless you are new to the
university, you know there are
times when the whole campus is a
skating rink beneath gale-force
wind. Navigating on campus con
sists of opening an umbrella to
catch the wind and letting it slide
you across the ice to class.
When conditions are such, and
they have been and will be again
this year, the university should
close in observation of safety.
In deciding whether or not
school should be held, Chancellor
Moeser should take it upon himself
to test the conditions. He could go
under the Love Library tunnel and
start running west toward the
College of Business Administration
building with all his might. If he
makes it past that strip of sidewalk,
which is often one of the worst on
campus, without cracking his crani
um, then he should declare that
there will be class.
Broken butt = no class.
There are other alternatives to
canceling class, such as using sand
and salt to make the sidewalks safer.
But the university should make
darned sure safety is adequate
before it requires more than 25,000
people to tread ice on campus.
There are legal reasons the uni
versity should close when condi
tions are unsafe. Lawsuits come to
mind. How many bruises, pulled
muscles, tom ligaments and broken
bones occur each year because
somebody slipped on ice?
Somebody could break their
neck*
Somebody could die.
If and when that happens, a
court could find the university neg
ligent and accountable.
Multimillion dollar lawsuits are
commonplace in death due to negli
gence civil cases. If not for a matter
of safety, the university administra
tors might use monetary reasons to
close when they can’t tame in
competence of decision makers
is questionable when EVERY sur
rounding-area school closes while
UNL stays open. Does our very
own administration know some
thing that everybody else in the
state doesn’t? Or do they just get to
park right outside their office
doors?
But instead of calling those
responsible when you need to yell
at them, try calling them to thank
them for making the right decision
this week.
Who knows, maybe this is a
new precedent of reasonable think
ing and increased safety standards
brought on by the people who run
this fine institution.
Hooray!
