A friend of mind, an avid hiker who gets out on Colorado's trails very often, recently shared with me a couple of photos he took at Lake of the Clouds in the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. The photos are of the same scene, taken ten years apart. The first photo was taken in 2013, the second one in 2023. I was shocked when I first saw these photos. I'm still shocked whenever I look at them. I know these forests, as I've been hiking and backpacking the wilderness trails of the … [Read more...] about What a Hotter World Does to Forests
climate change
A Couple of Questions on Climate Change for Political Candidates and Policy Makers
I find it serendipitous that, a few short weeks before the 2018 elections, a dire warning has been issued by the International Panel on Climate Change, a warning that should be of major concern to every political candidate, be it for federal, state, or local office. While acknowledging that the negative impacts of a warming planet are already underway, the IPCC says that to avoid catastrophic changes to the Earth’s interconnected ecological and societal systems, we must limit global warming to … [Read more...] about A Couple of Questions on Climate Change for Political Candidates and Policy Makers
Two Minutes to Doomsday!
The clock is ticking. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, “a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe,” the clock is the closest it’s ever been to doomsday (https://thebulletin.org/timeline). This looming doomsday has me comparing today’s chaotic politics and other challenges to another tumultuous time in our history, the 1960s. I got my start in this world during the Eisenhower presidency, and started becoming aware of the larger … [Read more...] about Two Minutes to Doomsday!
My views on Trump and Climate Change
I’ve been reading about how we need to get behind president-elect Trump so he has a successful presidency. If a successful presidency would be defined as finding common ground to begin healing the divide that so defines our country right now, I’m all for it. I suspect, though, that the president-elect and the team he is gathering to run the country would define a successful presidency primarily as the successful implementation of his campaign promises. One of his defining promises has to do … [Read more...] about My views on Trump and Climate Change
