By Jean Thomas
This past month has been one for the record books. Of course, that’s not saying much. After all, every month is one for the record books or there wouldn’t be any record books. But I digress. We all know what I mean. This past month has been outstandingly unique, even around here. We’ve had record warm days. I raked a big section of my yard in my shirtsleeves a week before the snow, then rain, then snow drifted down… in one day. This assorted precipitation exceeded the total for the entire winter so far, at least at my house. I had items pushed around in my gardens that I had thought were impervious to wind. Well, it seems there’s a new bad guy in our meteorological “town”. Until the last decade or so I can’t recall wind warnings being part of a weather report. Now we just factor them into our outdoor plans. I only had my driveway plowed four times this year, so I saved money. But parts of my lawn have become swampy and hold standing water for a long time. So I will have to revise my mowing patterns and take longer to do that chore.
So what’s going on? We just shrug and say, “Oh, that Climate Change!” Mostly we just go about our day and expect “someone” to fix it. The scientists seem to have it figured out. Geologists consider the last fifty million years the recent past, so forty to fifty million years ago, when the temperature of the planet was scorching, seems recent to them, but not us. What’s the problem, then, if it takes millions of years to change the climate? The problem is that we have entered an unofficial geological phase called the Anthropocene . This began around either the mid 18oo’s or maybe 1950 (it’s still a new idea) and is directly attributed to the influence of humanity. Here is where it gets scary. This is the beginning of the “Great Acceleration” of human influence and alteration of the climate of the entire planet. As I understand it, industrialization has altered the pace of production of greenhouse gases. These are the vapors and chemicals that prevent heat from leaving the surface of the planet. What in the past took millions of years now takes hundreds. The result is what we are starting to see, mainly an alteration in all the conditions we have come to rely on. If the seasons change their timing too quickly, and the precipitation patterns change too abruptly, the plants and animals that rely on a natural “schedule” for their reproduction and survival will face extinction. That can include us, since whether we like it or not, we’re part of the cycle. I checked, and state and federal governments are addressing climate change on a lot of fronts. It’s a start. But it’s kind of scary, so I’m definitely going to learn more about what I can do as an individual. I kind of like it here and would like my grandchildren to enjoy it the same way I do.
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