Climate Change Factoid – Patterns of Growth - What Will Happen? (#5 of a series)

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Author: Rich Albertson

Author: Rich Albertson

A beautiful sunny day, a few pretty clouds but still plenty of sunshine. Overnight, light rain fell and everything was damp and beautiful in the morning. A slight breeze. The temperature was well within the range of my best moods and lightest clothes. It was like that where I live before the heat began to grow. Not always, there were storms from time to time, but their severity was predictable enough that we had made our buildings and such stout enough to weather them without breaking things.

When the heat grew it wasn't like being in a sauna with the heater on full blast and the temperature steadily rising. Hot days were still hot and once in awhile hotter than we were used to but there were also cold days and now that you mention it, some of them seemed to be a bit colder than before. The most noticeable effects of the growing heat on the weather was with the wind and the rain.

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As the temperature slowly increased the water level in our big lake slowly declined. It also seemed like the creeks were running slower in the summer time and a few dried up which was new around here. Summer started coming earlier, winter later. We were still getting rain but it seemed like it came less often and when it did arrive it was more than usual. We are beginning to lose some of the topsoil in the south pasture. We also noticed the brush and small trees around the house seemed to be growing faster, closing in on our buildings. The brush is getting scary dry in the summertime making us hope we wouldn't have to deal with the same fires that had started on the dry side of the state. Last summer there were two small tornadoes near here first ones we have ever seen we thought those only happened in Tornado Alley, a thousand or more miles from here.

We're beginning to see some new critters around here while some we were used to seem to have vanished. Some new plants too. I sort of like that, but I've noticed that the long time resident critters aren't too happy about the newcomers because a competition has developed between the old and the new for food and living space. The trees also seem to be suffering from thirst but even worse is this strange new fungus that must have been dormant before the heat began to rise. I must say we were all somewhat concerned but no one seemed to have the time or inclination to do anything about it, although I frankly don't know what we might have done. Then it started to get bad.

Two and a half months ago, late summer, when things used to start cooling down, we had a heat wave of 11 days with temperatures nearing 108 when it almost never gets over 100 around here. Mrs. Goldberg and Mr. Wilson, both almost 85, were found dead from the heat being too much for them. Then the downpour it was like nothing you had ever seen 11 inches of rain in 24 hours. Over 60% of the state's principal crop, kumquats, is destroyed and farmer's are saying it washed away half of their topsoil. We thought it couldn't get any worse and then the wild fire started about 15 miles from the state capital and before we could bring it under control (it was driven by winds the like of which we had never seen before) it had burned to the outskirts of the city, destroyed over 300 homes, several schools, the football stadium and the YooHoo soda factory (that last was a good thing). Now, they're telling us compared to other states we have it good.

Share:    />We were worried so we brought in some eggheads from the state college to explain to the town meeting what was happening to us. First question out of our mouth was How much worse is this going to get? Here's what they said: The amount of extra greenhouse gases we have already introduced to the atmosphere (that's what is increasing the heat) is almost the same amount that has happened periodically (but very slowly) over the countless centuries. When that happened in the past earth heated up about 10C. All of this extreme weather (they mentioned again how we were actually a lot better off than a lot of others) has been produced by a temperature increase of only 0.6C, about 6% of what is ultimately expected. We all looked at each other in disbelief we asked, Can we survive that? No one answered. (Peer reviewed research, supporting the claims made in this factoid, can be found at the website)About the Author:

Rich Albertson is a retired lawyer, author, builder, building designer, carpenter and long time amateur naturalist. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Albertson's most recent book (2009), The Sky is the Limit A Brief and Easy Explanation of Climate Change for Present and Future Voters (134pp), is an explanation of the science, economics, politics and a discussion of the future of climate change written for people of average experience. Climate Change Factoids are drawn from the book. His first book (1978), The Bio-Conversion of Waste to Resource (4 Vols, 2624pp), was a treatise on methods for the sustainable management of solid and liquid waste in urban society. More about the Sky is the Limit book can be found at http://www.thecircleworks.org

As a Naturalist, Albertson's primary interest is to understand and then explain the conflicts that result from modern human practices that interfere with the operation of the natural world on a planetary scale.

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