June is Busting Out All Over
Well, March is, anyway. A March-blooming wildflower species for the past two years has been blooming in January--this year as early as January 11. Listen to this 3-minute segment from a recent NPR interview with the botanists who are following this unseasonal discovery.
And some folks are not suprised by earlier bloom dates. Unpublished findings seem to indicate that, even in the recent fifty year trend of CO2 increase (averaging 1.3 ppm increase each year) there has been a 2.2 ppm increase in the first ten months of 2005. To some, this suggests a 'tipping point' has been reached such that change is causing yet more change--the normal checks and balances no longer moderating the rate of temperature rise. link
The planet has been amazingly resilient to excessive change over recent millenia, according to James Lovelock who, back in the late seventies, formulated the world-systems idea that came to be known as the Gaia Hypothesis which sees Earth as a self-organising and self-regulating system. This new way of understanding the relationship between life and planet was ignored at first, but ultimately, Lovelock has gained considerable respectability for his ideas as they have matured. Now, when he speaks, people listen.
Comments
I talked with a man that work on a crab boat on the north coast of Alaska, who said they used to have a narrow channel between the tundra and the ice, and now they travel almost five miles to the ice. Great article Fred.
Posted by: osray | January 21, 2006 1:15 PM
Hellooooo up there, Big Business and Big Government! You're setting yourself up to lose billions of customers, and dead people are not allowed to vote!
(They're not listening.)
Posted by: M. Lawless | January 21, 2006 6:18 PM
So here's a question. If I have a field where I can plant new trees, which variety(s) should I plant based on their having the highest C02 absorption rate for land space occupied?
Posted by: Carl | January 22, 2006 9:45 AM