It’s Not Going to be Okay

May 24th, 2025

When I was growing up, we had a family tradition of ignoring problems. The more obvious the problems were, the more effort we put into pretending they weren’t there. It wasn’t at all logical, but that’s what we did. Apparently, the idea was that if we were willfully blind to an issue, it did not exist.

I am certain that my experiences as a young person were not unique. Denying reality is a common human response to scary or uncomfortable facts. I have a book from Cornelius Ryan called The Last Battle which describes the final struggle of the Nazis to defend Berlin from the Soviets in the spring of 1945. One of the most disturbing parts of this historical account is the description of the mindset of the German leaders stuck inside of Hitler’s bunker. Even in April of 1945, they believed that they were going to win the war. Even with Russian artillery blasting Berlin into rubble, they were convinced that it was all going to be okay.

It wasn’t.

This brings me to the subject of climate change.

Despite the current efforts of the federal government to pretend that climate change does not exist, or that it isn’t really that big of a deal, the evidence is overwhelming that climate change does exist, and it really is a huge issue. The problem is that, in many cases, the effects of climate change are causing havoc somewhere else. I live in Wisconsin, which is kind of a climate sweet spot. We haven’t had massive wildfires. We don’t get hurricanes. Our winters have grown milder, which actually seems like a positive thing for those of us who dwell in the frozen north country. Our summers are hotter, but not painfully so. The attitude of the locals is often, “Yeah, climate change is a real problem, but not here.”

That attitude is changing, at least mine is.

A year ago, on May 7th, we had intense thunderstorms roll through with large hailstones. We’ve had hail before, but it was pebble size, and it didn’t do any real damage. The hail that fell a year ago was big and oddly shaped. The hailstones were not round. They were like ice cubes, rough and angular. They caused damage. A contractor came to see me almost immediately after the hailstorm. I called my insurance, and an appraiser came to our house and told us that our roof and gutters needed to be replaced. The insurance paid us $22K to get the work done. I was a bit shocked. We have lived in this house for thirty-four years, and I had never even filed a homeowners claim prior to that hailstorm.

Because of a variety of delays, including the need to remove a monstrous glass panel from top of the house (it warms the contents of our solar water heater), the actual replacement of the roof and gutters did not occur until two weeks ago. Within three days of the replacement, we had another nasty hailstorm. The hailstones were golf ball sized. As far as I can see, the new roof is intact. The skylights are undamaged. The gutters look alright. I think we got lucky.

The next morning my wife asked me to look at our Toyota Corolla which had been sitting in the driveaway during the storm. The hood and roof of the car were full of dings and divots. It’s an old car, so I don’t care too much about those. However, my wife called my attention to the crack in the windshield. The glass must have taken a direct hit. There is a crack on the passenger side that is a perfect circle about three inches in diameter. That’s a problem.

My insurance will send a guy over here right after Memorial Day. I need a new windshield.

Are these hailstorms freak coincidences? Or is this the wave of the future?

I’m betting that we will see more wicked storms blow through our part of the world.

It’s not going to be okay.