The Whether Girl.

There are a lot of people who don't believe in global warming.

I haven't met a lot of people who don't believe in global warming up here in Vermont. People who have lived up here for a long time all recount how much warmer the winters are these days than they were a decade or two ago. The ground doesn't freeze solid like it used to, the spring thaw comes earlier and earlier, fruit trees set buds way too soon and a freeze kills them off, or apple picking comes a month or two early.

There is a lot of talk about this type of change around here.

I think some of it has to do with the fact that they actually have apple trees here. And maple trees. And veggie gardens they've been tending for years. And they view these enterprises as more than a hobby. I have never in my life been surrounded by so many people who are at least tangentially involved in food production. It connects people to their individual environment much more closely than happens when apples are things that come from the store and are purchased without knowing if they were grown in Washington or Argentina.

But, for all that awareness, I don't personally know if what they are seeing is the result of Global Climate Change (writ large) or shifting weather patterns.

Don't get me wrong, I believe our global climate is getting warmer.

I don't think there is a way you can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as humans have over the past three centuries and assert that it won't have an impact. But is the fact that March in Vermont now includes some warm, balmy days a result of global warming? I don't know. A sunny day in March just isn't reliable evidence either way.

At some level, it's just a nice day in March.

I believe there is a difference between what can be observed on a day-to-day basis - the things that occur at the level of a state or region and one person's notice - and global, long-term events. I'm not sure that I believe that global warming is something that is visible within the scope of human observation and recollection. You need ice cores and long-term pollen samples to really see what is happening. Not the Farmer's Almanac.

In any event, this post isn't about climate or weather. It's about elections and government. So I should get on to those.

As happens every two years, there was a major election this week. Not as major as the ones that happen every four years. But major. Some people won, some lost, majorities and minorities shifted in state and national legislating bodies and now things will, allegedly, be different.

Maybe they will be different. Maybe not.

When I look at politics, I feel like the stuff that I can observe is often a lot of sound and fury. A lot of yelling and posturing. Filibusters and mud-flinging and accusations.

The kind of stuff that I just tune out. Like the weather.

I'm not saying that I want to tune out our governmental process, or the trajectory of American history. It's just... I have a hard time staying focused when what I see is all the bluster.

And that's the way in which it all reminds me of climate change and weather. I feel like the elections that come and go every two years are like the freak storm events. Oh, you know it's going to snow come winter... But who would have thought that last year Maryland would have had more snow than Vermont? Freaky! Exciting! Something to shout about! Let's make prognostications about how this does or doesn't mean something regarding global climate!

I can't say with any accuracy if those five(?) feet of snow that fell on Silver Spring last year were harbingers of rising temperatures (because higher temperatures means more evaporation and more moisture in the air means more potential for precipitation, and greater temperature differences means that the atmosphere will work more quickly to redistribute the energy which, yes, can mean more snow - even though snow isn't usually equated with warmth).

I also can't say with any authority whether the recent elections will cause any real change in American government. Although I'll bet that there will still be shouting, and rhetoric, and gridlock. You know, the politics. That'll still be there. Just like there will still be tornadoes and blizzards.

And, let me tell you, all of that excites me about as much as a root canal.

So, maybe in the same way that a lot of people don't believe in global warming, I don't know that the evidence indicates that our government is headed towards Hell in a handbasket.

I am sure that American society has changed over the past two-plus centuries. How could it not? If you plucked one of the founding fathers out of his timestream and plopped him down in modern America it would blow his fucking mind.

And then he'd tweet about it! "@const. cong. Tea Party success 50/50 #tinyurl http://blah, blah, blah."

(Yeah. I don't get twitter.)

But we've still got the basic documents of governance to guide us. And we use them! They're great.

It is obvious that American society and culture have changed, as demonstrated by the blown mind of the time-dislocated founding father. But the cultural changes aren't, in and of themselves, a sign that our system of government has really altered. One hundred and fifty years ago, most of the people in America of African ancestry were slaves. A decade later, they were formally given the right to vote. There has been a massive social shift since and it has brought us to a moment where our society has elected a president of African heritage. Whatever your feelings about that president, that is a ton of cultural change. Our society is markedly different than it was before the Civil War.

And not just in that one way.

The process of American government by which Obama was elected, though... Has our governmental system changed substantively over that time?

Like climate change, it isn't something that I personally can get a hold on. I'm smarter than any of the people I've ever seen on Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segment, but - like a lot of Americans - my hold on the actual facts of government and history is spotty in areas.

And, unlike some bloggers, I'm not going to even pretend like I've cornered the market on facts.

The data is overlain with such a depth of cultural change in all areas - massive shifts in technology, economics, social issues, agriculture, and warfare. There is no control group here. There is no way to just observe the changes in government without all the rest.

Which makes it hard for me to tell if the people telling about our changing government, about how we are in danger of loosing it all, are really on to something. Or not.

People on all sides of the political spectrum make ominous prognostications about the direction our government is heading. Usually it's downward, to either the left or the right.

I have no data with which to debate them. Maybe we are driving it off into the ditch. But sometimes I feel like so much time is spent expending energy in the hoopla - the typhoons of scandal, dust-ups comparing politicians to Nazis, and deluges of mocked-up outrage, that it is hard to get a real intellectual grasp on the health of our governmental climate. Or which direction it might be heading.

A storm blew past us this last Tuesday. I can see the bands on the Woolly Bear caterpillar and prognosticate that another, bigger storm is coming two years from now.

But, honestly, I can't say if the coming storm - or the one we just weathered - is evidence of larger changes or not.