Of Lilacs And Coal Mines

Few harbingers of impending doom more dramatically illustrate the dependence on—and disregard for—nature by humanity than the canaries brought into coal mines to ensure clean air for the miners inside. To extend the allegory: if the globe is a coal mine, then, according to a UC Irvine study out today, lilacs are the canaries of the Earth.

Often symbolizing first love or youthful innocence, lilacs have been dying off in the Santa Rosa Mountains—along with firs and pines—due to increased temperatures and aridity caused by climate change, according to the report. The findings underscore trends forecasted by the IPCC to occur globally if global warming goes unchecked over the next century.

For coal miners, supplies of fresh, clean oxygen in coal mines was a constant challenge, especially in the absence of proper air quality monitoring technology. Canaries—mostly female, due to their perceived singing inferiority—were brought in because of their heightened sensitivity to methane and carbon monoxide.

When concentrations of either gas reached dangerous levels, the bird would fall from its perch, sometimes to its death, and the humans, with their greater immunity to the toxicity of the gases, would have enough time to don a respirator, or escape.

The forces of the universe seem to have conspired to play a cruel joke on our moral conscience in offering up the lilac as another sentinel species forecasting the dangers of rising concentrations of greenhouse gases (which include methane and carbon monoxide).

Like that of the canary, the fragility of the lilac contrasts greatly with that of humans, underscoring an insensitivity—both physiologically and emotionally—to the conditions responsible for their plight.





Polar bears, butterflies, coral, lilacs and canaries… why do the most beautiful species always seem to be the most vulnerable to humanity’s wrath?

The Burning Coast

Think the hundreds of wildfires raging across California are a weird anomaly? Better get used it. Earlier and longer and more devastating fire seasons are here to stay, and yes, climate change is a major part of the equation.



I’ve been making a deliberate effort to spend as much time as possible enjoying California’s natural offerings in large part because a cynical—or prescient—voice in my heads keeps nagging me to do so before it all disappears.

So in June, I travelled nearly 700 miles by car while travelling to and from the Klamath River and the Lost Coast on a rafting and backpacking trip with some friends.

Turns out there were only a handful of stretches on the road from where I couldn’t see the lofting header of one of the 1,400 wildfires ravaging the state at the time.

On the afternoon of June 23rd, my group was evacuated from the Dillon Creek campground by a park ranger when a fire front from the Siskiyou Complex crested the ridge above our camp. That came after three days of rafting through at-times dense, smoky haze.

Later, twenty miles into our Lost Coast hike, we had to cancel a 4,000 summit to King Peak after two local fires sent a cloud of smoke into our path. Nobody was in the mood for huffing particulates while making the ascent, and the sweeping panoramic views we’d hoped for would surely have been ruined.

So in my effort to enjoy California before it burns, I got a front row seat of, well, California burning.

A 2004 study by the US Forest Service and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs found that, in a best case scenario, the frequency of “escaped” wildfires (those exceeding initial containment limits) will double if carbon dioxide levels double, which they are expected to. Escaped fires are the most dangerous: 1 in 10 leads to injury/fatality or the destruction of buildings, and they account for well over half of the property value lost to fire in California over the last 40 years.

Combine the effects of climate change with our history of disastrous fire suppression and forest management policies, and the widely-held belief that we’re entering a natural long-term drought cycle, and raging wildfires become a simple fact of life in California. So much so that off-years will likely be few and far between.

So get out there and enjoy the Golden State, before it turns to charcoal.

SF Jumps Into The Solar Fray

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a progressive new initiative into law this morning that helps the city catch up to neighboring cities like Berkeley in its push to subsidize the purchase and installation of rooftop solar panels.

It's not as cool as Berkeley's initiative, but it's still totally rad, slicing $3,000 to $6,000 off the cost of a new system.

From AP:

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco officials are hoping Wednesday's
signing of new solar incentive legislation will turn the city into a national
model for solar power.

Full article here.

Of Snow And Sun

It’s a fun game for climate skeptics: take one isolated meteorological event, like, say, a record-breaking or unseasonable snowstorm, then point the finger at climate-believers and say, “told you so!”

This January, for example, was an epic powder year in the High Sierras. I was literally up to my chest in snow during one afternoon at Sugarbowl, and the snowpack by early February had already reached late-spring levels.

But one great month couldn’t offset the driest two-month period on record for the region.

The Department of Water Resources now says our snowpack is down to 67% of what it should be this time of year.

For decades, climatologists have warned about the effect of global warming on water supplies, and I’ve been arguing that in California, this particular symptom is likely to be one of the most immediate and severe for residents here. Stephen Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, said we could lose 30-70% of our snowpack due to climate change.

The consequences of a diminished snowpack include drought, which affects food and freshwater supplies; the ski industry; threats to river marine life; and very significantly—the diminished albedo affect of the snow itself, which means more heat being absorbed into the ground, which melts the snow even faster.

Even when we have a great month of snow, it’s important to remember that isolated meteorological events have to be viewed as just that, and that if you look at a general trend line, there will always be fluctuations along the way.

At the rate we’re going, we could have a freak winter storm in the middle of June that drops five feet of snow… and we’d still probably be behind where we need to be.

Stay Indoors! Climate Change Will Worsen Deadly Ozone Levels

It is bad enough that children in California are suffering from lung-development problems due to high concentrations of ozone, but as temperatures rise, the problem will only get worse.

It was a surprise to me to learn that ozone is a terribly harmful air pollutant. I had always thought that the gas—formed by VOx and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)—was crucial for filtering harmful UV rays out of the atmosphere. And it is … in the stratosphere.

But here on ground level, ozone pollution can lead to a variety of respiratory problems, including coughing, throat irritation, reduced lung function, aggravation of asthma, increased susceptibility to infections, and inflammation and damage the lining of the lungs.

These problems can turn deadly; one study found a significant association between ozone levels and premature deaths, and that a one-third reduction in urban ozone-levels would save roughly 4,000 lives per year.

But the problem could be greatly exacerbated due to climate change. NASA warns that as surface temperatures increase, we can expect a higher number of “bad ozone days,” when exercising outdoors can harm the lungs.

Infants, the elderly, and those with respiratory problems are even more vulnerable.

To make matters worse, a report out last week found that the Western United States is warming twice as fast as the rest of the country.

So what is the E.P.A. doing about it? Not nearly enough. After years of lobbying, the agency finally decided in March to strengthen pollution limits on ozone, lowering the allowable amount of ozone in the air to 75 parts per billion. But that was well higher than the amount recommended by a government-sanctioned panel of scientific experts, which had suggested limits no higher than 70 PPB.

The U.S. E.P.A. needs to listen to its own scientists, not to politicians kowtowing to those filling their coffers.

Tune in to Episode 4 of Climate Control, my weekly podcast, for more on this issue, including an interview with Marina Bernheimer, co-founder of Save The Air in Nevada County, an organization working to reduce ozone pollution in the most-affected region of California, the Sierra foothills.

Is Lake Tahoe Doomed?

Northern California’s favorite lake may be the next casualty in the climate wars, and could be a sobering example of what’s to come for the world’s oceans.

A new U.C. Davis study says that the lake’s water circulation is beginning to fail, causing temperatures to increase. That could mean a die-off of native, coldwater fish species and the growth of algae, which would turn the lake a murky green.

Geoffrey Schladow, director of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center at U.S. Davis, told the Associated Press that the deep mixing of the lake’s water layers could eventually cease, depleting the bottom layers of oxygen.

"A permanently stratified Lake Tahoe becomes just like any other lake or pond," Schladow said. "It is no longer this unique, effervescent jewel, the finest example of nature's grandeur."

What’s interesting, if not depressing, about this is that it is in some ways a small-scale model of what many are saying is happening in the world’s oceans as a whole. Much the same way that colds water churns from the bottom to the surface of the lake, Atlantic Ocean currents bring cold water from the arctic region down to equatorial waters, powering the Gulf Stream that regulates weather systems in many parts of the world.

Some climate models predict that global warming could cause the entire Gulf Stream to shut down by the end of the century.

If circulation in a lake in California can kill off native species and turn the water green, what will happen if the world’s primary water circulation engines grind to a halt?

Nobody can say for sure, but the last time that happened was 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age.

Scary.

Is Punxsutawney Phil The Evil Mastermind Behind Global Warming?

Somebody has a personal vendetta against winter. Once again—to the delight/detriment of select species of flora and fauna—spring has come early, furthering speculation that Punxsutawney Phil, the infamous groundhog whose shadow forecasts the coming of spring, is the covert mastermind behind global meteorological collapse.

According to an Associated Press report out last Wednesday, the field skipper sachem, a butterfly found in California’s central valley, has been spotted flying around a full two weeks ahead of schedule. And in Washington, D.C., the cherry trees that typically make an early April showing are already blooming. Across the country, swallows are laying eggs earlier, lilacs and honeysuckles are blooming earlier, bees are producing peak levels of honey weeks in advance, and if you have allergies, watch out—allergy season comes about 20 hours earlier every year.

So who stands to benefit from Mother Nature’s irregular EKG? It can only be that rotund rodential nabob, Punxsutawney Phil. It is true that his own vanity has offered the world a perennial obsession with his own occasionally appearing shadow. But I would submit that the true reason behind his angst toward humanity stems from his own living conditions: contrary to popular belief, Punxsy does not live amongst the flowers in a carefully crafted hole, but rather in a climate-controlled "burrow" at the Punxsutawney Memorial Library administered by a nefarious secret society known as the "Inner Circle."

It is from here—in an ironic display of man’s dominion over nature—that he is annually extricated, shoved into a heated artificial dugout beneath a tree, and yanked out at exactly 7:25 a.m., February 2nd, to forecast the coming of spring.

Punxsy saw his shadow again this year, and as per usual, was accurate in his prediction. There should be no doubt that the uncanny accuracy of his forecast is directly linked to his hatred of mankind for keeping him locked in a dark and miserable hole.

As long as he lives in these deplorable conditions, we can expect that he will continue seeing his shadow, and the forces of global warming will ensure that, every year, spring comes early.