I managed to get a small amount of snow peas planted a couple of days ago. I had saved the seed from last year's crop and been meaning to plant earlier than this.
Years ago in another lifetime a friend of mine used to pride himself on getting peas planted by April 1. You would think with climate change that date would be even earlier, but it seems our cold and wet hangs on later.
I think it has to do with Arctic weather, actually. As the days lengthen exponentially the further North you go, and with less and less annual ice build up, things warm up faster North of us, dropping lots of what is basically snow fog and moisture into the air.
That might seem unreasonable, because our storms and moisture do come from the South-usually right out of the Gulf of Mexico for the whoppers, but you can't deny heat evaporates water and clouds are cooler than direct sunshine.
I checked the atmospheric CO2 levels as recorded at Mauna Loa observatory, hoping to see that levels had dropped since everyone is supposed to be staying close to home and not burning up the fossil fuels.
I was surprised to see that the levels were 3 ppm higher than the same day last year. One sad fact about some of the gases-once in the atmosphere they can linger for a long time.
Added the the loss of forests by area AND volume, and how long it takes for a tree to reach 100 feet in height, makes for a grim forecast.
Hopefully humans will change behavior prompted by the impact of this pandemic-travel less and telecommute for starters.
I was rather disheartened to hear about the push to get schools open for the last few weeks of the year. The rationale appears to be that "children come out of COVID very well" and "If they are in school the parents can get back to work."
The focus seems to be on trying to social distance kids and provide PPE for school staff, but no mention of the impact on the sick or elderly that live in the households of those children being potentially exposed.
One absurd suggestion was to divide school days in half and have kids attend either morning or afternoon, essentially doubling school transportation emissions just to enable parents to get back to work at minimum wage jobs.
And don't forget, once an employer reopens a business and calls back the employees, if they refuse they are no longer eligible to collect unemployment compensation, leaving low income workers with no choice but to trust that their employers can assure the safety of themselves and their loved ones.
Years ago in another lifetime a friend of mine used to pride himself on getting peas planted by April 1. You would think with climate change that date would be even earlier, but it seems our cold and wet hangs on later.
I think it has to do with Arctic weather, actually. As the days lengthen exponentially the further North you go, and with less and less annual ice build up, things warm up faster North of us, dropping lots of what is basically snow fog and moisture into the air.
That might seem unreasonable, because our storms and moisture do come from the South-usually right out of the Gulf of Mexico for the whoppers, but you can't deny heat evaporates water and clouds are cooler than direct sunshine.
I checked the atmospheric CO2 levels as recorded at Mauna Loa observatory, hoping to see that levels had dropped since everyone is supposed to be staying close to home and not burning up the fossil fuels.
I was surprised to see that the levels were 3 ppm higher than the same day last year. One sad fact about some of the gases-once in the atmosphere they can linger for a long time.
Added the the loss of forests by area AND volume, and how long it takes for a tree to reach 100 feet in height, makes for a grim forecast.
Hopefully humans will change behavior prompted by the impact of this pandemic-travel less and telecommute for starters.
I was rather disheartened to hear about the push to get schools open for the last few weeks of the year. The rationale appears to be that "children come out of COVID very well" and "If they are in school the parents can get back to work."
The focus seems to be on trying to social distance kids and provide PPE for school staff, but no mention of the impact on the sick or elderly that live in the households of those children being potentially exposed.
One absurd suggestion was to divide school days in half and have kids attend either morning or afternoon, essentially doubling school transportation emissions just to enable parents to get back to work at minimum wage jobs.
And don't forget, once an employer reopens a business and calls back the employees, if they refuse they are no longer eligible to collect unemployment compensation, leaving low income workers with no choice but to trust that their employers can assure the safety of themselves and their loved ones.
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