DHAKA – Once upon a time, there was a season called winter. It was nicely tucked between late autumn (Hemonto) and spring (Boshonto) in a deck of six seasons. It was a time when nature would drape our cities and villages in a soft white shawl. Glasses of fresh date juice were sold from earthen pots to the early risers. The jaggery (nolen gur) made from date juice was the hallmark of the season which would find its way into various pitha and payesh. The golden glow of mustard fields would signal the merrymaking that goes on in the village fairs featuring lathi khela, putul naach, and nagor dola. That time, by 2100, is gone.

The Daily Star cites climate scientists to warn of a time when winter will vanish from our season cycle by 2100. The news sent a chill down the spine; mourning becomes winter. It’s not only a season that is vanishing. It is a feeling that a time of the year that defined who we are is not going to be there. My generation can sense its fleeting years, but to think our next generation will not experience winter is a sobering fact. A pause in the calendar that made the otherwise hot and humid year feel complete is dissolving. And the land of six seasons will feel like one long, unbroken summer.

I may sound poetic, but, as Ezra Pound has put it, “poetry is news that stays news.” And the news is: Bangladesh is warming by roughly 0.16 degrees Celsius per decade, and winter nights in Dhaka are warming at nearly 0.45 degrees Celsius per decade. Bangladesh’s average temperature can potentially rise by up to 4.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. As the unused blanket lies folded near my feet and November nights are drowned out by the drone of ceiling fans, I fear the fearmongering scientists are right.

Winter is more than a season. It is our way of life-a tradition. What happens to the fanfares of winter when the air is no longer cold enough for the dew to set in, fog to rise, the crops to be moist, birds to migrate, or people to gather around woodfires? Warming erases culture as surely as it changes climate. And it will change our agriculture,too: rice,wheat,mustard and winter vegetables need specific low temperatures to grow properly. The change in temperature will confuse the animals that hibernate, impacting the number of insect pollinators. This in turn will affect flowering cycles and stress livestock. The lack of cold will allow mosquitoes to thrive and worsen vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya.Meanwhile, the steel and glass structures of our cities will continue to trap heat and add to the weather, turning winter into an unending extension of summer. To think of winter-related outdoor activities and outerwear as nostalgic relics of the past will further shape livelihoods. People who depend on these items will hav