Kermit the Frog, One Year On

Just about a year ago I wrote about the spring peepers and LinkedIn and professional reputation (https://mailchi.mp/add1ae62cb03/resolution-for-15362377?e=[UNIQID]) and all such serious stuff. As it turns out, I need to write about the spring peepers again, but for other reasons.

Last year, and for as long as I can remember, it was well into April before I heard the first peeper in our area. This year it was March 13, nearly a month early. That meant that the ice was not only gone, but the water was warm enough for these tiny amphibians to “do their thing”.

Now, in Canada, when it comes to weather, there’s nothing certain except uncertainty. You’re safer predicting the stock market than the weather. But frogs in March? In the first half of March? And a few of the geese in our river didn’t bother flying south last autumn, they just toughed it out and began nesting well before their more timid cousins came back from Florida.

Listen, in Canada there are few subjects of conversation more popular than the weather. “Pretty cold, eh?” has to be the ultimate Canadian pickup line, precursor to a romantic night in the igloo, snacking on frozen arctic char and swapping polar bear stories. But I’m not talking about weather, I’m talking about climate. Trend lines.

Sure, there’s El Niño, the Pacific Ocean phenomenon which elevates temperatures in our part of the world, and has clearly had an impact on our recent winter. But there are also trendlines and the reality on the ground. Ski hills that never opened. Outdoor hockey rinks that never froze. Non-existent spring runoff. Migratory birds that never bothered to migrate. Bears and groundhogs who didn’t hibernate.

Something is going on. It’s not just old geezers like me who wax nostalgic about yesteryear’s roof-high snowdrifts, it’s people in their forties, and even thirties, who tell accurate stories about snowstorms and six week deep freezes of their youth that we simply don’t see any more. Canadian winters are looking more like Virginia winters.

So who doesn’t like a less severe winter? Well, farmers whose spring fields are too dry, perhaps. Or foresters who face tinder-dry woodlands combined with elevated temperatures. Or lobster fishermen who find that their catch is migrating to cooler waters further north. Or dog walkers who find that deer ticks remain active even in December. I could go on.

Climate change would be wonderful if it turned the whole world into Malibu or Bondi Beach. But that’s not how it works. Climate change is about extremes, not moderation. For example, melting glaciers necessarily put more fresh water into the ocean, changing salinity. Decreased salinity modifies currents, and modified currents take less warm Caribbean waters to Europe. The British Isles, being on about the same latitude as Labrador, will soon enough experience climate more like that of Labrador.

Climate change will be felt most in the tropics, where aridity and intense heat will make vast regions uninhabitable. You think we have a refugee problem now?

Is it too late to do anything about the spring peepers showing up a month early? Maybe. Is it too late to stop climate change from getting completely out of hand?

Not yet, but soon enough.