Year 2, Month 5, Day 10: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

The Charlotte Observer notes that climate change is having an impact on regional bird populations as well as forests:

Each December a hardy flock of birdwatchers scatters across Mecklenburg County for the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, which has tracked bird movements for more than a century.

Here’s what the numbers say about Charlotte’s birds: They’re moving north as temperatures warm. Eighteen of the 20 most common backyard species spotted last Dec. 27 have shifted their winter ranges northward over the past 40 years, national data show. The average distance was 116 miles.

It seemed to me that if our species had remained in closer touch with the ecosystems of which we are a part, we would probably not have fucked things up so badly to begin with.

Sent May 1:

It’s unsurprising that close observation of patterns in the natural world reveals the impact of climate change; the subtle and complex interrelationships between the various forms of Earthly life are profoundly interwoven with climatic factors. We must also recognize that as industrial culture has grown over the past several centuries, humans have become increasingly separated from the environment and oblivious to its transformations. This distance from nature means that for most of us, “climate change” is something scientists and the media discuss, not something we observe in the ecosystems around us. Northward motion of bird populations and crippled spruce forests are just two examples of global warming’s impact — but when Americans are more likely to see nature on TV than in real life, the shape of this terrifying threat will remain hidden until the changes are too big to ignore. At which point it will be too late.

Warren Senders