Sir: Yesterday, for the second day in a row, we had haze and smoke all over the city. In fact, we woke up to a thick blanket of fog-smoke-haze, and I have been trying to think of a portmanteau word for it, like “smog,” but including haze, too, but I get tied up in too many consonants every time I try.

Now, whose fault is this? No need to ask: the culprit has been identified. Once again, it is Canada. It is an old story by now: we import our weather from Canada, and the results are anything but satisfactory. This past Christmas Canada sent us positively miserable weather, but what could we do? Canada does not accept returns.

It is time to face facts. It is time to stop importing weather from Canada, no matter how cheaply it can be manufactured there, because we are getting shoddy goods. Inadequate weather is false economy. We pay more for it in the long run.

This is the season when presidential candidates pop up like toadstools, so here is our opportunity to have our say in public policy. The next president must make it a priority to develop a strong and resilient domestic weather industry.

It may be objected that a weather industry requires a large infrastructure, but this objection is raised mostly by people who like to say the word “infrastructure.” There is plenty of room for large weather mills. McKeesport is mostly vacant at the moment, and its location at the confluence of the Youghiogheny and the Monongahela gives it access to more syllables’ worth of navigable water than most cities its size can claim. Or, of course, we have at least one Dakota too many.

A strong weather industry would be an incalculable boost to our economy. It would employ thousands and make us independent of the Communist menace to the north of us. In the future we might even be in a position to export weather to places that desperately need it, like the Sahara Desert, which could be filled with attractive suburban tract housing if only it had access to suitable weather. But we must make a beginning, and only the federal government has the push and the pull to get the ball rolling. When you are considering candidates in the primaries next year, ask each one, Where do you stand on the domestic-weather question? Only a candidate who gives the right answer is worthy of your consideration.

Sincerely,
Aloysius B. Porridgewelder,
President,
Americans for Meteorological Independence