“The new normal,” what does that mean? I heard the term on the radio over a month ago and was a little perplexed. I listened intently as a talk show guest began chatting about our weather. The gist of his commentary was that our hot summers of the last few years are not abnormal but are in fact the “new normal.” The guest was hinting for us to be prepared for these conditions every summer. I have heard this refrain before but this guest was particularly believable. His area of expertise is meteorology and his predictive modelling was pointing to permanent changes in our local and national weather patterns. The guest was of course blaming the weather changes on global warming. He was prognosticating the usual things about weather pattern changes—greater swings in temperature and increased severity of storm activity. He talked at length about the consequences of those climatic changes. But he didn’t dwell on the negative aspects of those changes rather he was challenging all of us to think about everything we do, from what we grow to where we choose to live.

In a nut shell he stated, matter-of-factly, that these are the changes we can expect and now it is up to us to adjust and deal with those changes. It was refreshing to hear such a pragmatic approach to such a daunting problem. I guess the challenge for all of us is to figure out how each of us fits into the “new normal.”

Mark Vickars
CEO, Choices Markets Ltd.