A few years ago a distant neighbor tried to antagonize me by mocking the concept of man-made climate change. He knew that I was worried about such things and he seemed to be drawing a distinction between himself and me for the benefit of friends who were moving livestock up a loading chute. It was a friendly mocking on a February day that should have been hovering in the single digits above zero. But instead of the normal mid-winter, polar conditions, the day was fifty degrees and all of us were working in our shirt sleeves.
“Oh yea,” my neighbor said. “This global warming is a real bad deal. I just hate days like this.” I didn’t rise to his bait but he kept going. “It’ll change our way of life on the Great Plains.” There was a little laughter and most of the heads nodded in tacit agreement. I did not engage him in debate because I knew it was hopeless. But I did look at him to try to determine if he was being serious or just parroting the attitudes of the corporate defenders in Congress and the safely arrogant talk show hosts.
My neighbor is a little chubby, tries hard to be jovial, and likes to be viewed as wise. But he is not as practiced as the people in Washington and his eyes didn’t engage mine. They flitted over the faces of our friends, searching for approval. When he found it, he became energized, and basked in the attention. “I might have to take my insulated coveralls to the Salvation Army.” This got him a few more laughs and the way he puffed up was hard to watch, because he is not a stupid man.
He knows what an increase of just few degrees could do to the midsection of America. He knows perfectly well that a glorious, fertile growing season depends on a tough winter, that the productive temperature range for almost all plants and animals is very narrow, that a fractional reduction in rainfall could upset balances that the whole world depends on. Of course, if he were ever pinned down on any of these points, he would take shelter in the standard sand pile of “It isn’t proven. It’s just a theory.” He may even know that by such reckoning the lethal nature of a bullet to the brain is just a theory until you pull the trigger.
For the years since that day when I was mocked for my worry over climate change I have often wondered if my neighbor, or the public officials that he mimicked, ever woke up in the middle of the night wondering – what if. What if we really are creating a deadly change in the climate that sustains us? Do those people secretly pace their kitchen floors at three in the morning, or do they simply shrug their shoulders, conclude that the short-term increase in wealth is worth it, and go back to sleep?
There have been several nights in this summer of 2012 when I know that my neighbor did not sleep because I saw him out on a volunteer fire truck fighting prairie fires. It is not even August and already hundreds of thousands of acres of the Northern Great Plains have burned. The summer of 2012 will go down in the record books as one of the hottest and driest. It may even end up as the hottest and driest in recorded history. It is a disconcerting record and even more disconcerting to think that 2012 record might not hold for long.
Of course climate change is terribly complicated and it is a difficult thing to measure. We might have a wet year next year. The grass might grow three feet high again. Food and commodity prices might level off or even dip a little. There might not be another fire-season like this one for the rest of my life. I might never again see my neighbor’s face illuminated by the frenetic, red-hot light of a grass fire as he holds only a puny shovel in his hands. I may never see his face sweating in the blast furnace heat and streaked with ash like a common man at the battle of Armageddon. I may never again see the awe and fear in his eyes as all the things that he cares about, everything that nourishes him and his family, goes up in smoke. But at least I have seen his humanness and the chinch in his armor of pugnacious ignorance. It will take longer for the pompous politicians and the out-of-control talk show hosts to get that close to reality.
So well said, Dan.
It does seem that to suggest ‘global warming’ is to immediately be thrown into the same box with those ‘leftists’ and ‘crazies’ that only look for calamity. To infer that our use of fossil fuels and our abuse of our beautiful earth could create such a MAJOR shift for the future invites the rolled eyes and the smiles of ‘there she goes again!’
Even if it weren’t the result of our abuse, it is impossible to deny what the record books are now calling the hottest the U.S. has ever had recorded! That will change the growing, harvesting, and eating habits of the world, regardless of the source.
And we’ll see how much levity hangs around the subject then!
Lynn
And, Dan, up in North Dakota the only politician campaigning for state or federal office that mentions “climate change or “global warming” adds the word “hoax” to it. Those who privately agree are too unskilled in politics to speak their minds publicly on any of the large issues of the day. Not just climate change. They fall over themselves praising veterans all the while refusing to speak of war. While corn burns and the courageous die, cowards play at politics. Only problem is that half of ‘em then play at governance.
Thank you for this well written, clear essay, about how that fire built a bridge of empathy for you towards this guy…I might use it for my classes this semester…I like to challenge them with stuff that is a little foreign to them. Many come from Chicago’s war zone. I’ve watched the corn shrivel around me and hope my neighbors will be all right. (He sold 60000 bushels on contract. It would suck if he has to pay for $5 corn at $8.
I am very concerned about horse people and their hay. We have gotten rain and a third cutting looks good, but will we be able to get it out?
(Though I’ve seen some silliness on people’s part. We gave one person a 100 bales of good grass hay. Imagine how ill I feel driving by their place and seeing it sitting out in weather, gone brown and not so good. And I offered another person a 100 bales, skimming 4o out of my own stash, and she whined about losing her weekends, so didn’t want to come pick it up, even though I needed 60 bales off our neighbors’ wagon. I was charging last year’s $3 a bale. People have talked about $8 small squares.
And you can’t sell horses at market like you can livestock. Well you can, but you don’t get “nothing” for them and they come to a very bad end…It’s a scary time. We have enough for ours and maybe plus some… But how right is it to turn people away? Well, that third cutting may help…
Thanks for your blogs about your very good work.
Blessings and all good things, Katie
Moving, evocative, right on writing, Dan.
Even if the US wasn’t on fire & scorching, record-setting hot; what is the argument against using a windmill, solar panel or simply living a bit more realistically? It saddens me that big oil & coal has convinced Americans convenient electricity & gasoline isn’t harming anyone or anything.
Maybe the fires are moving your neighbor from a DWM (Dead White Male) to someone who is aware and caring about what we’re doing to our planet. I hope so; our DWM’s here in Chicago don’t have such problems, and so are totally unlikely to change until it’s too late…
It’s about time more is said about global warming/climate change emitting from human actions. When are we ever going to move on to affordable solar power, algae replacing oil to run cars, and less consumption and waste? Thanks for a well-written, thoughtful article!
Something to think about as we sit in traffic here and put more pollutants in the air. Our Minnesota electric companies are starting to close down their coal fired generators maybe too little to late
Dan, I just watched “Sunflower Journey” this evening (in Topeka) and two men in
Kansas reported on their buffalo herds (along with the song “O give me
a home, where the buffalo roam”). They did not seem to be worried
about the hot dry weather — and the buffalo herds pictured did not either.
They said as long as their buffalo had food (grass, etc.) in the field, and
water, they get along just fine. I am sure you feel just the same way.
Thanks for the fine essay, Dan! You hit the nail on the head. Especially loved the “armor of pugnacious ignorance” phrase.
We all agree that he science of climate change and global warming is very complicated. I believe there is a conceit among climate scientists that they know more than they really do. The critics of global warming may very well be right when they say it is not as bad as experts say. Then again, it may be worse! We just don’t know! And it is frightening!
Strongly reminiscent of Wendell Berry – an elegant, and very human, piece of writing, Dan.
I know that it’s not only corn that’s coming under pressure due to the drought and heat, but ranches also – several recent news stories about ranchers being forced to early sales/slaughter. Hoping Wild Idea is holding up under the pressure…
- Oz
I disagree that the science of climate change and global warming is all that complicated. Lets assume for the moment that the “facts” clearly show that”in our part of the world” the weather is heating up faster than the past in in some ways more rapidly than some other “non-industrialized parts of the world”. What are the implications of that? What would be necessary to fundamentally change this “reality”? Most of “us” living in the good old USA are not yet ready, willing, and able to seriously consider these questions as “we” are not yet fully confronted with them and continue to find ways to avoid them. Fundamental change of the ways most of us live, think about things, and process information would be necessary and that will only come by being unable to continue the ways we have,ie, a crisis- whereby fundamentally new and different alternatives from the past and present will need to be used. To my view the sooner we all reach this point the better!
Some think that worries over a few degrees C are exaggerated. Others know the truth–most things benefit from higher temperatures (c’mon now–which word is associated with paradise–tropical or Arctic?).
A few even know that every living thing derives all its tissues from the biochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to sugars, fats and proteins. Far from a pollutant, CO2 is the basis of life.
The main arguments for the scares are classical logical fallacies, such as attacking the reputations of scientists who fail to genuflect to the Church of Global Warming and go publish the truth instead. Or arguments of numbers, as if science were done by vote. Yeah some M.S. student sent out questionnaires to over 3000 scientists and found that 97% of the 80 or so who are paid by governments for alarmist results “climate scientists” –believe in AGW. And 31000 real working scientists have petitioned against the Kyoto Death Treaty.
Yes, belief in alarmism kills. Besides deaths due to the economic holocaust brought on by “renewable” fuels (which use rare earths and other things), the “greens” encouraged burning food in cars(ethanol)–which raised world food prices, causing the riots in Arab countries. Those have killed tens of thousands of people.
Being a sucker hurts people and few lies are more destructive than global warming alarmism. You have got to find more honest sources of information that the Mass Media, also called the lamestream media.
One superior source is The New American magazine.
On climate, the award-winning science blog Watts Up With That is a superior source for info on this subject. Run by a weather forecaster, it has connections to all the major climate sites.
You people matter more than most people. Your work to heal agriculture is vital to the well-being of all the planet. Grass-fed meats are a MAJOR healing mechanism for the terrestrial biosphere.
So you have got to learn how to find out the truth.
Thank you for another thoughtful essay, Dan.
Here in northeast Ohio, it’s been a struggle to keep our garden alive through the hottest, driest summer in memory. For the first time since returning here, I became concerned about whether our water well would continue to flow.
Our small plot is but a microcosm of the larger dangers looming for the world: not enough water and food–and too many people.
I recently read an interesting article by Bill McKibben. He points out that the amount of proven coal and oil and gas reserves still in the ground is 5 times the carbon output that the planet can safely absorb before we reach the dangerous threshold of a 2 degree Celsius raise in global temperatures. Link to the article is below.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
Keep fighting the good fight, Dan. What other choice do we have?
It is clear that global warming is real and its increase has been observed for 20 +/- years now. Geology records that it has happened many time over millions of years. The hardest part is determining how much we humans may be influencing it. I think we do. The balance is so delicate in nature that, to me, any “extra (human-made)” percentage of emissions of toxic elements will change things… the world is a giant petrie-dish. Our incredible demand and abuse of our water supply is our biggest problem. I definitely think we are playing a role in our own demise……. but our main focus is on money…. always….. a lot of good it will do us!!!
Climate change is an ongoing occurrence and it’s nothing new in nature.
As far as humans causing negative affects which cause the climate to change, can’t argue with that. Why are cities hotter than rural areas? If we humans can change climate locally in metro areas, then all those metro areas combined can influence changes in the overall climates of the world. There’s no argument except for the folks who are skilled at arguing with a fence post.
Every time we get a “bad” fire year down here in Texas, I always ask myself, “how many times has this happened in the last 12,000 years? The last 30,000?” More than we’ll ever know, I’m sure.
Just finished your book Dan, and enjoyed it tremendously. Will spread the good word.