TWENTY TWELVE was the hottest year on record, by an alarming margin of over one degree. Global warming, according to records dating back over a hundred years to the present, is progressing an an alarming rate, far faster than scientiests had previously thought, far faster, alarmingly faster.
Over the past few years it has slowly dawned on me that i might live to see major changes in the climate and weather, and i have mixed emotions about it. Things will never be the same. And not only was twenty twelve extraordinarily hot, but there was an extremely high number of forest fires,
in the united states, and possibly all over the world. This past october, in rocky mountain national park near boulder, colorado, a forest fire burned in a valley which is usually covered with deep snow. There had not been a fire there in hundreds of years, and it is still smoldering now.
The rocky mountain snow pack is shrinking every year, as are snow packs and ice sheets all over the world, and annual rainfall for most parts of the united states seems to be declining every year. Longer warm and longer dry seasons, with more frequent, longer lasting droughts, are causing the fires.
Hotter temperatures, vanishing winters, more frequent and severe storms, widespread persistent drought, and larger, more frequent wild fires, all these we are witnessing even now. The future is here, and we have a new normal.
Has anyone bothered to calculate how many billions more trees humanity would have to plant as soon as possible to eat up all the extra carbon we have already pumped into the atmosphere? the tree planting will have to accompany the rapid, desperate conversion to green energy. The sooner we get to planting, the better our chances of survival.
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