JULY 6, 2020 – I’m not a “math and science” guy, though in school I did just fine. It’s just that I didn’t advance very far. I was too busy being a “words” guy. Still am.
No apologies. And my disclaimer regarding math and science doesn’t disqualify me from deploying words about a scientific concern. Words allow me to understand what “math and science” people are telling me about . . . math and science.
Let’s look at climate change, temporarily displaced from headlines by another matter of math and science—and the outbursts by folks who are flat-out deniers of “math and science.”
Over the weekend at the Red Cabin, we experienced two extended power outages. Outages here aren’t uncommon, given millions of trees lining power line easements. Trees fall, lines snap, the electricity goes out. But these latest failures covered a wide territory during . . .
. . . a weekend of extreme heat, not only in this region, but across the continent. Here, it’s been so warm so long, that the lake water, usually cool and refreshing, has turned to bathwater. Eight-six degrees Fahrenheit, to be precise. I know this, because I actually became a “math and science” guy temporarily, fetched a thermometer, tied a length of string to it and tossed it into the lake. As a “words” guy, I googled “Average water temperature Grindstone Lake, WI.” Twenty minutes of searching resulted only in tangential hits. A search of my six-plus decades of personal experience, however, revealed an average water temperature far below 86F.
(One web source: the conservation director for the nearby Indian Reservation (a person I know from my days as lake association prez), who posted data from 25 years of Secchi-Disk (a black-and-white checkered disk lowered into the water) readings. The average depth of clarity has declined four inches a year, which “math and science” people attribute to warming temperatures).
While waiting for power to be restored, I worked on my tree project on our “back 40”—cultivation of white pine seedlings in an area harvested of deciduous species several years ago. (The majestic white pine was the dominant indigenous species here before sawyers of the late 19th, early 20th centuries clear-cut the northern half of Wisconsin.) Higher terrain was bone-dry, the soil so hard I could barely jam flagged stakes into it to mark “volunteer” seedlings I discovered. My trees are thirsty, and yesterday evening’s brief, atmospheric rumblings produced only a light rain lasting a few minutes. This after several years of violent storms and torrential rains—unnerving in their intensity and frequency.
As a “words” guy in the woods, I’ve developed a multiple-choice test:
The conditions described above are:
- Caused strictly by aberrational weather;
- Samples of what we can expect the future norm to be;
- Evidence of climate change in the “natural course”;
- Evidence of climate change caused by human activity;
- None of the above;
- A combination of [designate].
As a “words” guy in the woods, I fear we’re frogs in a pot of water on its way to a boil.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
