Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumAmericans Know The Reality Of Warming, Even If Their Insane Government Won't Admit Its Existence
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The Pacific north-west dad: My children have no memories of the winter I grew up with
Growing up near the Puget sound, Heath Breneman remembers his dad shoveling drifts off the roof of his garage and the powder delicately collected in his pant cuffs after a day spent sledding. He recalled how the snowplows would push enormous piles off the parking lot of his elementary school to create the perfect berms for kids to play on. He can still conjure the satisfying crunch of how it sounded under his boots and the thrill of the chill each year that made warmth feel earned.
Now hes a father of four, and his kids havent felt the same magic. Temperatures have been steadily rising across the region, with averages expected to climb up to 6F annually by midcentury. Scientists have warned that precipitation will increasingly fall as rain rather than snow. My children have no memories of the winter I grew up with, Breneman says. The shift to a true two-season climate the past 20 years has been swift and stark.
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The Appalachian trail hiker: There wasnt any water at all
Maria Martin looked down at the cracked earth with dismay. This was the second dried stream shed come across on a five-mile stretch of the Appalachian trail, the popular hiking route that stretches across thousands of miles and 14 states that hug the US east coast, where she spent the summer. Martin grew up traipsing through the backcountry in the mid-Atlantic, where she says water is typically abundant even in the warmer months. It is famously very humid and wet, she says. The concerning conditions stood in sharp contrast to a lifetime of memories of camping in the summers there with her family, filled with sporadic downpours and swimming holes. But on a hot morning last August, there wasnt any water at all. It wasnt even mud it was just dirt, she says, recounting how she had to search the woods for a place to fill her empty canisters. I heard the same thing from hikers heading north or south, she adds. There was one section of the trail that had a nearly 30-mile gap between viable natural water sources.
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The wildlife enthusiast mourning the loss of biodiversity: Every year there are less butterflies
Tim Goncharoff has always loved wildlife. From deer to birds to the smallest creepy-crawlies, he says. Starting when he was a very little boy, Goncharoff would venture into the world to marvel at the butterflies and the birds, all the growing things and the bugs on the ground. I thought they were all wondrous miracles and I couldnt get enough of it, he says. Over his 70 years, hes witnessed the brilliant abundance of life in the world around him grow quieter. I think a lot of this is about the arc of a long life, he says, but I have noticed year by year, that there arent so many butterflies. There arent so many birds. The variety of species has diminished.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/31/climate-crisis-guardian-readers
NewHendoLib
(61,561 posts)biophile
(1,194 posts)Walleye
(43,763 posts)biophile
(1,194 posts)Blame the Democrats, I guess
Walleye
(43,763 posts)biophile
(1,194 posts)They thought it was a hoax. Others said its not fossil fuels but just natural cycles of nature or the sun. Well, even if it has another cause, its prudent to plan and legislate to mitigate the fallout from climate changes. Nope, they didnt want to do that either. And here we are ..