Out in San Francisco, where I live far too little of the time, it has been raining for about two months on and off. Sometimes it pours buckets. Other times it just sort of drips down all day in a gray haze. “I might as well be living in Seattle,” my wife said to me the other day.
In LA, where the climate is one of the only true reasons to reside, things are scarcely better. Several weeks ago, it rained horribly for about ten days and was cold after that. San Francisco weather?
Today, on the other side of the country, in Washington D.C., my friend Frank is still digging out of a freak, mountainous snowfall that buried his house last week. Another 20 inches, they say, is on the way over the next couple of days. In the meantime New York, where I am right now, has received little more than a desultory dusting. In other words, Washington seems to have New York’s weather. It’s so bad down there, in fact, that Frank can’t make it to the staff meeting, and he never misses a staff meeting.
There’s only one conclusion I can reach in this situation. The climate is changing in a very specific way: the weather is moving south.
If what I believe to be happening is true, the implications for business are vast. The south will no longer be the land of juleps and lazy dogs sleeping in the sun. It will be cold and enterprising, filled with energetic folks rushing off to be in their warm workplaces. The Pacific Northwest, now free of its lousy weather, will stop hunkering down inside its coffeehouses, put on a tie, and get to work. Los Angeles, suddenly afflicted with Bay Area weather, will empty out almost entirely, at least of show business people. Where they will go I don’t know. Boston will of course be like Canada, but that’s no change for them. Aside from the six tolerable weeks in September/October each year, it always has been. And Canada? They will be even more smug about themselves than usual, because now everybody north of St. Louis has their lousy weather.
The impact on New York is still unclear. It should be horrendous here right now, it being February, but it’s not. There’s a little snow on the ground this morning, but it’s not what the shrieking, screaming, sweating, gesticulating, eye-bulging, doomsayers who deliver the weather on TV prognosticated. It’s a little snow. We can live with it. In fact, it’s one of the warmest winters I can ever remember. This global warming isn’t all bad, at least when it comes time to put on your wing tips and get to the office.
