An Optimist’s Pessimist’s Guide to Climate Change Two-Thousand-Twenty-One

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711)

According to the Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index, (AWSSI) from the Midwestern Regional Climate Center, most locations in the U.S. have experienced a mild or moderate winter, and according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, the persistent…