By Liz O'Connell for Frontier Scientists
A Ponderosa Pine grove towers over my house roof. The 100 foot trees grow naturally and swiftly east of the Cascades in Oregon. Before Thanksgiving, extreme winds blew over the Cascade mountain barrier and whipped around central Oregon. The night after, I checked my yard from a window—dried pine needle & pine cone litter but nothing unusual. I didn’t see it until I walked out into the yard. A ten foot tree-top lay next to the house.
Hmm, I thought, looks like a Christmas Tree. I brought my son, visiting from Portland for Thanksgiving, outside for a look. “Christmas has come early,” he said. And he helped me haul the sap heavy tree into the house and right it for my Christmas tree. You can’t find a “black jack” in a tree lot, they don’t grow “Pondos” on Christmas Tree Farms. So it’s unusual; I call it my extreme x-mas tree.
SuperCell: Thanks to: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Perhaps another extreme to add to the 2012 list: the warmest year on record, a record meltdown of ice in the Arctic ocean, hurricane Sandy, droughts in some areas, floods and fire in others. It is Climate Change.
More people are connecting extreme events with climate change. A few years ago when scientists began laying out the climate change evidence it was still easy to attribute events to natural variations such as volcanoes erupting or warm ocean currents. But currently….
“The human caused climate change signal is now overwhelming the natural climate variations,” said Michael Lemonick, ClimateCentral.org reporter and author of Global Weirdness, Severe Storms, Deadly Heat. The additional Carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by burning fossil fuels is adding more than normal CO2 into our earth’s system. CO2 in the atmosphere is one-third higher than 100 years ago. People are putting these facts and events together.
Can climate change be fixed? Have we already overwhelmed the system?
Back in 1968, I lived in Los Angeles for the summer. I could write my name in the particulate matter that collected on my car overnight. A lot of modifications contributed to the L.A. clean-up: increased mileage standards, reformulating fuel, and catalytic devices on cars. It’s an awesome transformation considering how many people live in L.A. in this 21st century enjoying air without the extreme glut of particulates.
TreeRings for Climate Research: Thanks to University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Today to address world-wide climate change, political leaders are the ones that can help the most. It will necessitate international political action. The real fix is not wearing a mask to breathe, fortifying our coastlines or building flameproof fortresses.
My Climate Change Christmas wish list is simple-- serious local, state, and federal efforts to reverse climate change. Reporter John Carey describes the national possibilities in his December 10th article Without Congress, There’s Still a Path to U.S. Progress on Climate.
My personal commitment is to bike and walk more, recycle and reuse, compost, conserve, shop local (and my closet), love and laugh more, and help give voice to scientists who work to understand the science and systems that we need to live.
