Climate Out of Balance (icicle conquest - 5)

The weather we are having feels extreme, but I don't know that it is an indication of climate change. It is hard to say just which moment is the tipping point. But this summer sure was brutal around here. I went down to Atlanta for a family matter and when I got back, the northeast was in the midst of a heat wave that would have done Phoenix proud. It was about five thirty in the afternoon when I landed at White Plains and when I got off the plane, it felt like I had opened the door to the oven to check how the cookies were browning. Yipes.

 

It was a one-two punch, what with the drought and all. The grass got crispy. Trees started to die. And at work, the traps I was monitoring were often pretty empty. I was working all over the state and it was bad. The entomologists all said it was the worst collecting year they'd ever seen. The weren't making wild claims. Scientists are cautious like that. If a bunch of them do tell you there is something to be worried about and you choose to ignore them, you are a fool. If you choose to ignore them based on what somebody who has a profit-based stake in the situation says, or what some mean and vain media pundit says, you are even more of a fool, you are being aggressively ignorant. You are sticking your fingers in your ears and going LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU at the very people who spend their lives carefully and thoughtfully and deliberately studying these issues. There's a hefty dose of narcissism in choosing your side based on noise and greed and ignoring the serious researchers. It's a matter of, I will ignore the data in order to get the answer I want. There's something terribly out of balance about only listening to a few cherry-picked "experts" who are not respected in their fields and who are probably cashing big fat checks from dubious sources.

 

All of it is out of balance. It's out of balance as all hell. But this weather, the ice and snow this winter, the heat wave this summer, the extremes we have noticed world wide, it's hard to say just where the tipping point is. Where do conditions shift from being outliers to trend? That's a matter for the statisticians. And like all statistics, there are plenty of different ways to analyze. We're all blind men feeling up the same elephant.

 

So this summer, in the heat, I didn't see as many or any of some of the species or even genera of my beloved bees. There were the honeybees, the ones you all fret about. There were bumblebees, big and fuzzy and sturdy. But plenty of the four-hundred odd other species that fly around these parts were scarce or absent. I don't think I saw a single Coelioxys the whole damn summer. I imagine they were out there, just greatly reduced. But what with development and stupid suburban sprawl everywhere, the habitat many organisms rely on is greatly reduced. So I think what you get are small pockets of diversity, with small populations of animals hanging on as best they can amidst the McMansions and the ecological wastelands that are lawns. (God I HATE lawns. If you must have one, at least do not dump weed killer or pesticide on it. At least let it be a diversity of plants, including those things you chose to call weeds. Don't grow a stupid monoculture to make a damn rug that is nothing but a display to your neighbors that you can conform and a sop to the real estate culture. Property values, property values. We chase after property values at the expense of every other kind of value...)

 

So you have these tiny populations of bees or whatever, and they are chugging along in that strip of land by the exit ramp, or the swamp behind the highschool. And then you get a bump in conditions and it is too hot or too cold at the wrong time. And the populations crash, just goddamn auger in like a test plane that should have never left the runway. And back before development, there would have been some pockets that would have had milder conditions, and you would have had a few individuals to survive and breed up the numbers again. Now you don't. Diversity tanks. Those of us who care and know and love nature weep.

 

The rest of humanity just watches Jersey Shore or goes to the mall or something. I don't know. I can't relate. Most people can't tell a bee from a wasp, let alone know that there are many kinds of bees. Most people think all insects are icky and would like to see them gone, never suspecting that if all the insects were gone, the humans would shortly follow them. We need them. We need the plants. It is not a matter of decoration. It is about survival. And people don't know it, can't seem to grasp it. LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING. SHUT UP YOU ARE BRINGING ME DOWN, I WANT TO GO SHOPPING. LA LA LA.

 

I don't know how this happened. I don't know what goes on in the schools, in the homes. It seems out of balance to me. Or maybe it is me. Maybe I am out of balance. But I am listening. And while I still have some retinal surface, I will be watching. My eyes will be wide open. Even if we're going down, I don't want to miss a bit of it.

 

Done