The week between Christmas and the New Year is often full of pause and reflection, but I have had little chance for either of late. Much of North America got walloped by fierce winter storms this past week, and my new home on an island in the Salish Sea, in the Pacific Northwest, was no exception. Before much of the rest of North America was hit, we had several days of snow and ice, the temperature dropping to 5° Fahrenheit some nights. Then a series of “atmospheric rivers” melted the snow fast as high winds and fierce rains arrived with practically balmy temperatures in the high 40s. Now we are experiencing king tides, and even the seals seem a bit excited by it all. Earlier this week I watched three seals trying to climb onto a floating log, each new seal turning his friends off into the water as he got purchase on it.
With so many changed and cancelled plans and holidays, ferries and flights, a couple of county-wide power outages, and weather that seems intent on revealing new leaks and weaknesses in the structures that we live in, I have not found much time for the reflection I would usually engage in during the last week of the year.
Tomorrow, I plan to post a year in review—some of the best of Natural Selections from 2022. When I do, I’ll probably take down this post. As such, I’d love to hear from you, in the comments here, what you were particularly struck by in Natural Selections in 2022—themes, individual posts, or particular parts of individual posts. Any and all of the above. As always, paying subscribers can comment, and I encourage you to do so, and offer up your thoughts as to what I should highlight in tomorrow’s Year in Review. Thank you!
For me, any and all of the discussions on the Trucker Protest were very resonant. Being Canadian, the media blackout on the hardships people were facing - mostly from those who were vaccine hesitant and those stories you published of people who suffered. Those stories were simply not told by the Canadian Media. Watching the protests in streams like Viva Frei, and then comparing to news coverage was both shocking and revealing. Posts and podcasts from Darkhorse brought sanity to an absolutely surreal and insane piece of history that will go down in the books as "A Small Fringe Minority".
For me, the newsletter "Science Misunderstood" in September stood out. The sheer number of "scientists" at prestigious universities who have given up on true science simply to be part of the crowd is astounding. I have to believe that they don't really believe these things, but are forced to support it because they need to support families and don't want to be ostracized. I'm hoping voices like yours begin to "win out" and the pendulum of truth swings the other way in 2023.