But there is great NEW stuff being created by the Anthropocene. Chartered boat trips to one of the five great oceanic garbage patches. Sweeping vistas of the encroaching deserts in China or sub-Saharan Africa. Canadian mountains bereft of nasty pine trees. Mega cities of 25,000,000+ people scrabbling over diminishing water supplies.
I guess Iām more of a āglass half fullā kind of guy.
Exactly.
Michiganās loss is Ontarioās gain?
Iāve personally witnessed the decline of cherry production in Northern Michigan. The Old Mission Peninsula in the Traverse City area was the heart of tart cherry country, but in the last 30 years farms have been sold off and subdivided for vacation property, and many of the remaining farms have torn out their trees and replaced them with grape vines, with the belief that wine will somehow be a viable replacement. Thereās still lots of cherries being grown, but itās not like it used to be.
They missed āSkiing in the Lake Tahoe Basinā. For most of the past decade, the snow pack has been alternating between basically none to decent. Meaning, one season will be pretty good, and the next will have no storms roll through in November/December, leaving them bare for the high season. California may be going into a long term drought and if climate change really screws up rainfall patterns around here permanently, there will be no snow to ski on. Iāve heard 2050 tossed around as the approximate āno more skiingā date.
Thatās within my lifetime.
There are a lot of highly dubious āfactsā in there. āDeforestation from illicit Colombian coca plantations is a significant driver of climate change.ā Totally believable. Coffee is imperiled? Maybe if climate change doesnāt also create more regions suitable for growing coffee, or if all regions capable of growing coffee are 100% cultivated already. The Panama Canal? Yeah, better hope someone invents a method for pumping water. The North Pole? Russians planting a flag on the seabed underneath the ice cap doesnāt seem super relevant. The Sydney Opera House and the Tower of Pisa? Yeah, Iām sure these cities will just be abandoned to rising seas in the next 50 years; I mean, itās not like human society has ever built a system of dikes to allow people to live below sea level, is it?
Traveling all over the world on a jet airliner to see all the things on the list probably wonāt exactly help slow down global warming.
So book your flights early, before itās too late!
Iām not clear, since the title said āClimate Changeā. Are all these imperiled only by global warming? If so, why not say āglobal warmingā. Is there another list for re-glaciation?
Freeze-thaw cycles arenāt necessarily changing in one direction (see the section in the article about the tart cherry orchards). Ecosystems will have to move due to changes in several directions to humidity, rainfall, groundwater, etcetera. Simple warming and drying isnāt the only result.
Using 2012 as an example year is pretty silly, too. It was a mighty strange year for weather in Michigan. Besides, cherry harvest that year was crap all over the state, not just up by Traverse.
I remember in the mid-90s farmers were getting five cents a pound for tart cherries, which was actually less than the final costs of harvesting them. The rental of a shaker and a crew actually cost more than what the markets were offering at the time, so many farmers took front-end loaders and ripped all their tart cherry trees out. That to me is the start of the end of the cherries. Fudgies buying up vacation land and causing the value of real-estate to skyrocket has certainly contributed. You are certainly right about 2012, I was told there was roughly a 90 percent crop loss that year across the board in regards to what was grown.
Tree fruits did terrible, and it was too dry for field crops that arenāt irrigated. Yeah, not a good year for Michigan agriculture.
Real estate values are ridiculous pretty much anywhere in the northern lower anymore. Feels like itās only a matter of time before Lansing auctions off the remaining state campgrounds to ensure us unwashed masses canāt go up there to disturb the 1%-erās vacations anymore.
And make sure you fly all over the planets as you check off āseeing theseā off your bucket list.
Decreasing the total crop by 10% doesnāt really sound that bad.
If youāre going to be pedantic about it, note that a 10 percent loss of trees is a loss of productive capacity that will take a several years to recover from, soā¦ ?
Not really an attempt at pedantry. I think itās perfectly fair to expect that any author indending an article to be accepted as factually accurate could at least be bothered to use the correct words. Weāre not above criticizing evolution deniers for misusing/misunderstanding scientific terms (āevolution is only a theoryā, etc.), so why shouldnāt we expect as much from those making arguments that we already agree with?
I actually thought you were referring to ādecimationā as the Roman practice of killing every tenth man. Which is 10 percent. So the confrontation you are assuming is more a matter of me assuming too much subtlety on your part and playing with your joke which you werenāt actually making. But by all means, designate me as your personal enemy and follow me around boingboing. See if you can rise to the level of highest dudgeon, because that is best dudgeon.
There go my hopes of making a friend on the internet today.
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