Every chance I get I head out to check out the spring ephemerals as they will be gone soon. Some are already setting seed. What I see is how much the area has changed due to climate change.
Skepticism
Some of the people I talk to think climate change is not happening. They have various reasons for believing this.
One didn’t realize this referred to global temperatures rising, not just around here. Others use the excuse climate has always changed from time to time not understanding the rate at which it is changing. Of course, there are those who think people are only along for the ride, not the driver of these changes.
What I Have Seen
For me, everything began changing in 2012 with the extreme drought. Now, I had seen summer droughts before and everything got back to normal in the fall. Not after this one.
May had been the month of high water here for years. Now floods come any month of the year.
Big rains came to cause the high water. They were gradual. Now the rains drop in a short time and cause flash flooding that is washing out the creek banks.
As a Gardener
May has been the time to plant okra, summer squash, tomatoes, peppers for years. Some years warmed up faster, some slower, but the month held. No more.
Now I often have to wait until June to plant okra and summer squash. Planting winter squash that late can mean I don’t get a crop at all.
Adapting
I am trying to adapt to these changes. It’s hard. Planting times can move. Crops can change.
Fixing the creek is another story. The creek divides our pastures, two on the west side and two on the east. We had a bridge.
One flash flood destroyed the bridge that had withstood high water for thirty years. The succession of floods has created drop offs into the creek bed making it impossible to get equipment across the creek. Two hay fields are now inaccessible.
So, you skeptics say, that’s just a minor thing, a simple normal change. I say, yes, if it was only here, maybe it’s a normal change. But melting glaciers, intense heat domes, extreme weather globally, say otherwise.
More important: Changing my lifestyle to accommodate the changes won’t matter, if I am wrong about climate change. Can you and the Earth afford to ignore it, if you are wrong?