Posts Tagged ‘climate change’
Flippin’ Cool
Yesterday, we received the April issue of National Geographic magazine marking the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and it’s flippin’ cool! I mean, literally!
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From Editor, Susan Goldberg:
“For the occasion, we’ve created the first ever “flip” issue of National Geographic—essentially two magazines in one—to revisit environmental milestones of the past half century and to look ahead at the world our descendants will inhabit in 2070, on Earth Day’s 100th anniversary.”
I figured it was just a cool cover and the inside would be all one orientation, but no, the contents literally reflect opposing views.
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A quick turning of the pages revealed a wealth of information that will take me a while to consume, but I’m already enjoying the creative presentation.
I’m open to both ways of framing the status of our planet and undecided as to which perspective I will read first. I’ll probably start with the bad and then finish with the good to leave me with a more optimistic mindset.
I didn’t notice if either view includes a reference to dealing with pandemic flu events. Reports have surfaced pointing out the massive shutdown of activity across the planet has quickly resulted in decreases in atmospheric pollution.
There is a meme going around depicting the pandemic as the Earth sending us all to our rooms to think about what we’ve done. While people are stuck at home, the planet is getting a little reprieve from the previous levels of industrial abuse.
Here’s to the possibility of humans permanently changing behaviors for the better after the current pandemic passes into history. I’m sure the Earth would welcome a correction of the current trajectory.
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Feels Colder
We’re growing soft with all these above freezing days in winter. More than one person told me how cold it felt yesterday even though temperatures were in the upper twenties. That’s above average for this week in January.
It did feel cold to me, which just seems wrong. It’s as if our blood isn’t making the usual adjustments for winter with so many warm days.
Normally cold temperatures serve as the winter reference point such that we end up leaving jackets unzipped when it warms up to the 30s because it feels so warm.
The up and down toggle around the freezing point is messing with our snow cover. Cyndie gave me some pictures that look a little like the moonscape.
It was a result of the snow dropping off tree branches onto the ground below.
The snow gets soft during the day and the sun pushes down on any dark spots on the surface. Overnight, it freezes again to lock oddities in place. That keeps cycling until a new dump of fresh flakes smooths it all off and it starts all over again with a clean white coat.
Honestly, more snow seems to temper the cold. As long as there is fresh powder around, the chill seems less harsh. After everything melts down to a hard crust, the air seems to offer a more severe bite.
It’s a bad combination when our bodies remain calibrated to above-freezing winter temperatures.
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October Snow
I’d like to act all surprised over all the snowflakes flying this early in October, but we’ve had so many days of warnings this was coming that it’s something of a feigned surprise.
How can there be global warming? There is snow falling in October!
For those of you who think this way, go talk with the people suffering more wildfire calamity in California today or any of the record-breaking typhoon/cyclone/hurricane intensities over every ocean on the planet with each successive formation.
I’m sure these incidents and all the melting glaciers and polar ice are just a coincidence.
I grabbed a screenshot of the Weatherbug radar image with our location southeast of the Twin Cities showing the spread of falling snow from Buffalo to Beldenville.
The wintery weather has me thinking I should have already blown out the water line to the labyrinth and drained all of our garden hoses. Cyndie reported the water for the chickens was frozen this morning. At least she had already installed the plexiglass window panes over the metal hardware cloth in each of the openings earlier this week.
It’s probably a good thing the Twins got booted from the baseball playoffs so they don’t have to play games in this kind of weather.
We’ve got a fire in the fireplace and I am gazing out at the deck collecting flakes with trees full of leaves as a backdrop. It makes me think of a certain Halloween blizzard (1991) for the drastic cross-mixing of fall and winter.
Of course, I also have a vivid memory of the Halloween night it was so uncharacteristically warm I went for a long bike ride to enjoy the late taste of summer.
Luckily, today our location won’t get much in the way of an accumulation from this system, but it definitely serves as an attention-getter for what lies ahead.
Much as I love winter weather, I’m in no hurry to get there this year.
It would be so nice to have time to actually finish the deck resurfacing project before snow shows up for good.
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Mixed Up
Yesterday afternoon we had plenty of sunshine that enabled me to get out and mow some grass, not because I wanted to, but because it needed to be cut so bad I didn’t dare wait for another chance. Our grass had grown so much since the last time I mowed, it looked like a June afternoon around here on October 7th.
On top of that, the recent pounding of rain we have been receiving has our property as wet as a spring day. It was rather disorienting to need to mow around certain areas where there was standing water. That is something that used to happen at the beginning of the mowing season. In my lifetime of living in this region, October was not a month where mowing thick grass needed to happen.
This is not the climate of my youth.
Meanwhile, this June-type of lawn growth is days away from meeting up with its first dose of snow for the coming season.
It’s a mixed-up world.
Someone posted in our neighborhood app asking people to be on the lookout for a pink-faced calf that ran off into the woods. I’m not sure if the pink face was natural or the result of some special effects. The calf had been tied in the yard for a “cownicorn” birthday party.
The drama didn’t last long, because they found the calf just a short time later. It may not be all that mixed up for this rural community, but it was unusual enough to contribute more strangeness to the already crazy thick growing grass in October.
I accept that nothing is actually static, so unusual occurrences are always unfolding, regardless of how we perceive and frame our world. It inspires me to strive for resilience in the face of whatever new mix-ups might be around the next corner.
It’s hard to imagine what to expect, other than the obvious fact something new will show up as being totally mixed up.
Unless it doesn’t. But then, would that just seem mixed up, too?
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Month’s Worth?
Many times I have wondered what it must have been like to live before there was a national weather service and electronic communication to spread forecasts for days ahead. If that were the case today, I’d have no idea there might be a lot of rain on the way this week.
The prediction suggests a possibility of receiving a month’s worth of rain by the end of the week.
Yesterday afternoon, I emptied a half-inch from the rain gauge at the top of our hill and a full inch from the one by the labyrinth. If the graphic on the right proves accurate, we could receive 3 to 4 more inches, or beyond.
Our home is located just above and between the words Red Wing where the graphic shows the darker red color marked by the yellow cloud as “Locally Higher Amounts.”
Higher than three or four inches? Oh, joy.
It is just a forecast, though, and doesn’t come with a guarantee of that amount of rain actually falling here.
The land is already wet, so any amount of rain will add a level of significance to this. All I can do is watch what happens and respond as issues arise.
We are approaching a time when it won’t be possible to use a measure like “month’s worth.” We won’t know what constitutes a month’s worth of rain when the pace of change in our planet’s climate starts to run away exponentially.
There are countless reports that such a result lies ahead in our future. We just don’t have a firm universal prediction pinning down the timing of how soon it might occur.
I have a sneaking suspicion it could end up being within my lifetime.
I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
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Rosier Color
There is a way that the slowly transitioning angle of light moving through the seasons silently changes our perspective of everything. Because we tend to be oblivious to the subtlety, curious circumstances that materialize in our daily affairs often appear as having some outward cause, when in fact, it originates from within.
It’s the way we see events from inside our own minds that colors the realities.
It would behoove more people to consider choosing a rosier color. The trick, however, is in having enough sense to recognize when the worst of history begins making its way back for an encore. How do we keep “never again” alive?
We don’t have the luxury of voting bums out, because our system is built on voting people in. The majority might agree on not wanting any more of a current administration, but they struggle when it comes to needing to agree on the replacements.
One difference from everything that came before, is the amount of industrial pollution fouling the planet. Our amazing progress is conjuring up weather events that wield uncharacteristic intensities. The calamities that grab our attention now are not the challenges that our parents faced.
If only a twitter or facebook message could fix all that ails us.
A simple slice from the surface of a thumb can wreak havoc on buttoning a shirt, or turning a page. Little things that were once inconsequential, become monumental challenges. Is that because the way our mind sees it? Or simply because, that’s the way it is?
Rhetorical questions. The kind that beg to be erased by the onset of heavy eyelids, demanding to give in to the pressure of sleep. Deep sleep. REM sleep. Never hear the alarm sleep that only ends when saturation has been accomplished.
Or when the light slanting through the window in the morning provides a color of hope that our hearts fail to resist.
Who doesn’t love a moment of feeling a little hope filling their hearts at the break of a brand new day?
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Serious Soaking
First, I want to share an image that I received from Cyndie yesterday morning after she read my post. Exhibit A:
She had forgotten to send it earlier, but my description of how Delilah loves rubbing her snout in the snow reminded her.
Just as I predicted, there is very little snow left now. It was very gloomy all day, and rained throughout, but being mostly chained to my desk, I didn’t really notice how much rain actually fell. All I had to go on for what was happening across the state line at home, was the weather radar.
My main concern was over how the thunder might be upsetting Delilah. I wasn’t sure about what hours she might have the company of Anna, our animal sitter who helps out between classes at University of Wisconsin – River Falls. It’s hard to pinpoint the minutes of big thunder claps booming.
I did find the telltale evidence of a throw rug at the deck door pushed up into a pile, indicative of her usual tizzy of “shouting” down the big bully who is threatening us with all that rumbling noise.
From her location and behavior when I walked in the door, I’m guessing she tired of the stormy weather and took refuge in the one place without windows. She didn’t get up until after I walked in –an uncharacteristic behavior– from the rug in a short hallway between bathroom and bedrooms, where she had obviously been sleeping.
The situation at home turned out to be an anti-climax to the alarming sights I witnessed on my drive after passing through River Falls. The whole way from work was wet, but closer to home there must have been an extreme downpour.
Just south of River Falls, I spotted the first epic flooding, where it was pouring over a side road, making it impassable. A short distance later, I noticed a car turning around on an adjoining County road. As my car moved past the intersection, I saw that a highway crew was trying to deal with a missing lane of asphalt that had washed away.
Five miles from home, I cross what is usually a little meandering stream, but the outlines of the banks were completely indistinguishable beneath what was now a giant flowing lake.
The water flowing in ditches looked like raging rivers. I worried about what I might find at home.
Luckily, although there was an abnormal about of water wherever I looked, the damage was minimal.
We now have a pretty significant washout on the path around the back pasture. I’m afraid I will need to resort to a bridge over that gully now, if I want to keep mowing that route with the lawn tractor.
It used to be a slight depression that I could drop into and drive up out of, to keep mowing without interruption. Any attempt to repair the gulf with fill, so I could continue to drive over it, would just get washed away with the next heavy rain.
That spot is calling for a load of field rocks, which then leads me to the plan of needing a bridge for the lawn mower.
Our land is in a constant state of change. I think the rate of change is accelerating due to a certain alteration of the global climate.
It’s intimidating.
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Better Sink
I am always learning, and thanks to George’s comment on yesterday’s post, where he reminded me about something he shared on a recent visit, I have a renewed appreciation for the value of our grassy fields. Improving our planet is not all about planting more trees.
Grasslands are actually a more reliable carbon sink than tree forests, because they store much of the carbon underground in the root systems.
George pointed me to a podcast where I was able to learn about the Santa Maria Cattle Company in the Chihuahuan desert ecosystem where they are successfully reversing the desertification and building grassland using cattle as the primary tool.
Seems like inverse logic, doesn’t it?
Mismanaged, cows can overgraze and destroy the grassland. Luckily, better thinking is leading to a more enlightened perspective. It is possible to learn from our mistakes and choose a better way. Fernando Falomir and his family are showing what is possible and sharing what they have learned so others can do the same.
Inspiring!
George also turned us on to Gabe Brown and the work he is doing to champion regenerative agriculture. Turning dirt into soil! Seems so simple.
Instead of the convention of tilling the earth to plant one crop and ply herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, while also needing to add irrigation to achieve results, Gabe reveals how farmers can succeed by mimicking the diversity of nature instead.
The compacted and deadened dirt can be exchanged for a thick aerated biomass soil that seems so obviously logical as to not require harsh and harmful chemicals to be viable. It can be done, because that is the natural way things worked before we started slamming our short-sighted mass production methods across the land.
In fact, we have a wonderful example right in the heart of Minnesota, where George has returned to his family land to put these precious principles into practice with Walker Farms.
It’s not all about trees.
I’ve definitely learned that.
Thanks, George Walker!
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Happening Now
I’ve witnessed the evidence in my lifetime.
The trend is undeniable. Feel free to argue the cause.
I claim human activity is responsible.
For the time being, at least we still have trees.
I need to plant more trees.
I heard an ominous story on news radio during my commute home yesterday that highlighted the concerns of owning animals at a time when growing hay to feed them is getting harder to do successfully.
We have hay in our shed for this winter, but future years are not guaranteed. It pains me that our green grass is too rich for granting full-time access to our horses. We end up feeding them hay year-round.
It’s awkward. Like being adrift in the ocean, surrounded by water that you can’t drink.
It will be tough if we reach a point where there isn’t enough hay to feed all the grazing livestock.
It’s not a single issue calamity at risk, though. There are plenty of other aspects of the warming planet that are simultaneously having an impact. I’d sure hate to be in the insurance industry now that we are experiencing waves of increasing intensity severe weather events.
I can’t figure out how they will be able to cover the ever-increasing expenses for claims from the devastation of storm after storm.
I wonder what it will be like here six years from now. We don’t currently have a long-range plan worked out for the ranch. The initial improvements we put in place upon arrival have sufficed for a few years now. There isn’t a lot more we need to do beyond maintaining the buildings and grounds as they are.
Simply responding to the ongoing climate slide may become our main challenge.
I suppose I could always focus on marketing our paradise as a place to Forest Bathe.
I really should be planting more trees.
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