I was recently thinking about how much the bad weather in the United States is functional for some larger purpose. You learn early that you have to deal with things. You need a certain kind of independence, planning, and preparation.

British weather is quite benevolent. Maybe it’s too gray, but it’s not going to kill you. American weather, hurricanes, blizzards, flooding, is very volatile. We don’t always feel it because we’ve become wealthy, but maybe in part we had to become wealthy to deal with that volatility. That might be a blessing in disguise. It’s related to the earlier point about Iceland. It’s tough there. You’d better be pretty adaptive. A perfectly stable environment is not ideal either.

Interesting throughout, and plenty of fresh material.  The weather point I owe to conversations with Henry Oliver and Rebecca Lowe.