As I mentioned last week, Henry and I flew to Kentucky last month for his goddaughter’s graduation. On the way home, we flew over this wildfire. It particularly caught my attention because I’m used to thinking of wildfires as a summer phenomenon. Seeing them in December (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) was particularly troubling and a clear indicator of the ongoing effects of climate change.
Then, we spent the last couple weeks of December in Eastern Massachusetts with Henry’s sons and their families. It rained while we were there, which is always a treat for this desert dweller. One son was talking with me about the drought that has gripped New England over the past few months. He has struggled to keep the trees in his yard hydrated, in large part because there’s no infrastructure for watering on the scale we have in the desert.
While not as severe as in some areas of the West, this drought is still significant for the local environment. As we traveled around Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, we saw stressed and dead trees and one series of lakes that were so low that people’s docks were literally standing in mud, not water. This drought is therefore killing aquatic life and stressing the local critter populations too.
Meanwhile, climate change is manifesting as flooding and hurricanes in other parts of the US. Houses are damaged, the coast erodes, and precious farm crops are destroyed, crippling our ability to feed our growing—and increasingly vulnerable—population. Marshlands are disappearing, and the Mississippi River is losing floodplain and island habitats.
Again and again, I think of Mother Nature, stressed and yet adapting. Polar bears are learning new ways to hunt in the absence of sea ice. Northern forests are adapting to more frequent fires. There is hope here, providing we know where to look. Like Mother Nature, we also have choices. We can support adaptation, or we can live in denial until our homes are also swept away or incinerated.
How is your home area being impacted by climate change? What can you do to educate others, support nature’s efforts at adaptation, and do your part to minimize your impact on our fragile planet in 2025?
How poignant, Shirin, that you wrote this just before the horrific fires in California, also a product of climate change, drought, and humans building unwisely.
Here in Vermont, we have had a series of floods. How I wish we could share our water with the west! But the planet is suffering due to what humans have foolishly done, and not done.
All our recycling and many carbon offsetting initiatives feel to be too little too late. One thing I am doing is serving as a spiritual guide for a person who is on the front lines of climate change legislation here. I feel my role to be one of supporting activists.
Thank you, June. In my next blog post, I reflect on that poignancy too. The photos of the floods in Vermont have been devastating, and yes, there is so little we without power can do. Blessings on your spiritual guidance relationship, the work your directee is doing, and all the choices we can make for sustaining our precious planet.
Peace,
Shirin