We Are Screwed

 I thought I would check Mauna Loa CO2 monitoring the other day.  Our CO2 ppm is up 2.5 ppm since the same time last year.  

This is after the world came to a screeching halt during the pandemic, airplanes grounded, people working from home, kids not taking buses to school.

Scientists have known there is a lag betwen the time CO2 gets into the atmosphere and when it gets removed. We tend to produce more than the planet can absorb, so it keeps rising overall.

 

Why then, did it continue to rise so rapidly when technically production should be less?  The only logical explanation is that our ability to absorb it has been reduced even more.

 

I was ranting about Brazil and the recent push to level rainforest for development.  Then the WIllow pointed out quite astutely that last year was a huge one for fires-the Western US a well as huge parts of Australia. 

Last night, seperate from this issue, I decided to street view the house where I grew up. My mother sold it about twenty years ago.  Here's a pic of her on the front walk, most likely going out to dinner for Easter or Mother's Day:

The house in in complete shade from the huge white oaks -two in the front and several in the back, plus a white pine to the left of the azaleas she planted when I was very small.  You can just make out the lamp post ot the right between the white and pink azaleas.

This is what it looks like now:

Yes, quite a nice looking neighborhood I suppose, but absolutely whacked.  The neighbor to the left had a privet hedge that surrounded their property-gone.  They had Tulip trees in their yard-the same size as our oaks-gone.  The azaleas-gone.  People used to stop and photograph them.  

The oaks, our white and the neighbor's red, gone.  Now for all I know severe storms may have come through and done a number on the trees.  My  mother was always worried one would fall.  But the azaleas?  I had been told they were an insurance risk because robbers could hide in them.  Good luck I couldn't hide in them when I was tiny.

My mother's lawn even looked better.  But this is an example of where this country has been going-whack a tree, whack a bush, take out hedges.  Just the amount of wildlife that lost cover in this ONE yard is devastating to me.

I was glad to see the corner lot (behind the viewer) had kept their hedge and their trees and you can't even see the house.  The rest of the block looked pretty much like this.

gives me nightmares I tell you.  Folks, you can't re grow hundred year old trees overnight.  What's going to reduce the CO2 and stop the extremes from becoming even more extreme?

Things are really out of whack here this season.  The maple sap is late, and the trees aren't giving it up.  My water table is down at least a foot.  We had little snow and no rain.  

The last time the Earth had these kinds of CO2 levels it was a grassland.  Trees don't like hot and dry, or violent storms either. It doesn't help to reduce CO2 production if you are not increasing absorbtion.  The planet cannot sustain this rapid change .

 

There is a little doom and gloom for you on this Spring Equinox.  This is not an ""I told you so" I will be proud of.   

On the other hand, keep your eyes peeled for Auroras tonight.  Solar wind incoming coupled with the Equinox ups the odds for viewing them.

Planting season

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.