Endless Summer

By: Andrew Ahern
This past February Boston made history. February 24th, 2017 marked the highest recorded temperature in the city’s history reaching 71°F (Boston.com), just one day after February 23rd reached 68°F. The record was intact since 1985 when Boston hit 70°F. But 32 years later, record temperatures in cities, states, and countries mean much much more than “records”. We are living in a world that is plagued by climate change (our own doing), and rather than ignoring signs of record temperatures it's important we notice how the globe’s increased temperature has an influence on our local temperature records. Rather than complacently sunbathing or stating the obvious (“this weather's so nice”) people need to begin to face the fact that the world is facing its biggest global threat. Indian summers, record temperatures, warm winters all take on different meanings in our post-climate change world. Everyone needs to smarten up to this reality.
But I have a big fear other than the simple denial of climate change. I'm more afraid that people will grow complacent with warmer winters, and we'll become denizens to the “Endless Summer”. That is, the more climate change becomes inevitable and the harder it becomes to have an effect on reversing its plight, people will convince themselves of the benefits of increased temperatures. It will be a naive optimism that fills people who need to “find the best in their situation” rather than understanding their role in the earth’s decay and destruction. This “endless summer” attitude fills me with deep deep fear.
I've had this suspicion for a while, but that Thursday (23rd) and Friday (24th) convinced me that this will actually be how people react to record temperatures. Everyone was out enjoying the warm weather: biking, walking around, playing Frisbee, anything the winters cold prevents us from doing. People were more joyful from what I could see. And of course I constantly heard “can you believe this weather? It's so nice”. My snarky response would be, “yeah if you like global warming” and be met with unsatisfactory faces. I-with good intention, soured these people’s days for a brief instant. I reminded them of a big reason why it's so warm in the middle of winter, and they didn't want to hear it.
But an “endless summer attitude” is just one of the growing fears of warmer weather springing earlier. The New York Times released an article in early March entitled “Spring Came Early. Scientists Say Climate Change is the Culprit”. Journalists Jeremy White and Henry Fountain explored how many southern states in the U.S.A saw springtime come early compared to past transitions from winter to spring. The graph in the article showed a 30-day period of spring arriving early in states such as, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, among others. They write, “An early spring means more than just earlier blooms on fruit trees and decorative shrubs like azaleas. It can wreak havoc on schedules that farmers follow for planting and that tourism officials follow for events that are tied to a natural activity such as trees blooming. The annual Cherry Blossoms in Washington D.C., is a prime example. Some plant species that bud early may be susceptible to a snap frost later, and early growth of grasses and other vegetation can disrupt some animals’ usual cycles of spring feeding and growth”. Animals and consumers, farmers and tourists, trees and plants will all pay for the consequences of earlier springs. Flowers will bud sooner, wildlife, such as birds will be confused to what season it actually is, therefore migrating early, and farmers crops will begin to develop early only to be destroyed by the possibility of snow or extreme cold.
It's not just that winter will cease and spring will emerge early. That is just one possibility. What we saw in local Massachusetts was a pattern of spring-like weather for 3 or 4 days, and now I type this while it's 30° with snow on the ground. I saw flowers begin to bud after those days only to decay by a bellow of cold and snowfall emerging a week later (climate change also exacerbates more precipitation to places with harsher winters and habitual rainfall). Allergy seasons may also prolong as an effect of early springs. If flowers begin to bud early (like this February) and then during their relatively normal timeframe, that becomes the possibility of two allergy seasons where one is expected (spring) and the other an effect of climate change (winter).
All the agricultural, ethological, phonological elements that suffer with the advent of increased climate change will only persist if human consciousness towards the issue changes (smartens). We are the proprietors of how climate change is handled from here on, while also being its #1 reason for the pernicious affects why climate change persists. If we do not handle ourselves carefully from here on; making personal choices to change our consumption, pressuring our government to decrease use of fossil fuels, and taking the evidence scientists propagate seriously, then the future for humanity, earth, and biological life is in extreme danger of extinction.
I'll give a portent now and say that if people already find governmental regulation restricting to freedom, wait until that government has to enforce environmental protection policies due to the nature of not doing anything. It may be better to be proactive now for everyone to make some self-sacrifice in trying to sustain this planet, human, and animal existence by becoming more environmentally conscious. My advice, when the next unseasonably warm day (or any day) get a trash bag, buy gloves, call up a friend, and pick up trash off the streets of your town.
Anything will help.
Salem State will also be holding a community clean-up day sometime in early to mid-April. Look out for posters and advertisements to join the cause. Help clean the streets of Salem and thereby make small steps to a larger project of sustaining the environment and becoming more environmentally conscious. Email me @ a_ahern1@salemstate.edu for more information.