European spindle (Euonymus europeaus) berries. (Photos by Anita Barbour)
Lately I have taken to saying that we are living in a hoax. Conservatives rightly point out that climate change is nothing new, but then, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they wrongly argue that present climate trends cannot be attributed to human causes. As usual, politics trumps reality.
Black swallowwort (Cynanchum louiseae) seed capsules.
Clearly the trend today is toward warming, despite regional diversions such as the deep cold that has overtaken Eastern Europe this winter. But Rasputina, on the opening track of their 2007 CD Oh Perilous World remind us that “1816 was the year without a summer,” when summer crops were frost-stricken in Europe.
A human problem with warming is that we like it. Have you noticed how appealing people find the global warming cliché of palm trees growing on Cape Cod? It’s all beaches and surfing and tanning and if the heat is too much, just turn on the air-conditioner. Yes, some prefer skiing and snowboarding. But these winter-lovers are just outvoted.
Goldenrods (Solidago spp.) in winter sunset light.
So how do people feel about this year without a winter? As you may have found by schmoozing around, most people love it.
But what about non-human life forms that stay outside most of the time? Consider mice and voles and moles. Winter snow is the roof over their heads and more — the building space for their infrastructure of tunnels and nest chambers built of grasses and sticks, and stuffed with a harvest of nuts and fruit and dormant insects. These insects may be more or less accessible depending on snow depth. Deep snow may protect cocoons and other overwintering invertebrates to some depth below the snow line where rodents can’t easily forage, reducing available food. Little rodents are prime meals for owls and foxes, but these predators successfully hunt their quarry in the snow.
Among winter-active herbivores, squirrels stash nuts and seeds all over the woods, and dig these morsels out of deep snow with ease. Deer and rabbits are hampered by deep snow and slick ice, but snow-free they readily find green basal leaves of ground herbs, and tender shoots of shrubs. Their consumption of greens may leave less for hibernating vegetarians that need fresh leaves, such as the woodchuck. The porcupine fares well in any weather, consuming woody stuff, even spruce and hemlock branches.
Rose-of-Sharon (Hibiscus syricus) seed capsules.
Plants are doubly plagued — by winter herbivores and by cold that penetrates deeper into snowless ground. Freeze-thaw frequency — this winter may have set a record – disrupts the soil and dries it out, increasing exposure and dessication of roots, and making low plants more susceptible to the erosional force of rain when it does come.
One perk for nature-lovers is this extended season of winter plant forms free of the crushing and concealing effect of deep snow pack. Yes, we are missing picturesque scenes of grasses and weed stalks rising and casting artful shadows on white wavy drifts, but we have the dead plants erect and intact, pretty much all of them everywhere. Opportunities abound for appreciating the beauty and form of many more plant species in their winter state. Crisp and translucent in the suspended animation of seed release and slow decay, winter plants reflect the season’s ambience more directly and distinctively than sky and cloud and even ice and snow.
In low winter light, plants make great studies in contrast and indeed color, the full palette of summer giving way to a more subtle variety, toned-down but equally arresting. The southern winter sun, passing through a greater thickness of atmosphere due to its low angle, is warmer in color, shifted toward the red end of the spectrum like the light from distant stars.
What we learn deepens our appreciation of nature’s breathtaking beauty, a value beyond price and a constant reminder of our deepest existential roots. This mild winter has been a great chance to stay close and keep tabs on the winter nature scene, to get out and take in, to celebrate. So bundle up, venture forth and take a good look before it’s over. ++
The Woodstock Times is the last source in the world I’d consult for scientific reality.
The Times is always looking for a way to justify what it started out wanting… bigger government, more regulation, constrains on development and business and higher taxes.
Talk about politics trumping reality. New York State is bleeding population and in a permanent downward economic spiral. Which, it seems, is precisely what the hipster/commie cult of Wodostock wants.
The clue here is how often the name of the latest doomsday prediction has changed. Global warming became climate change with a few transmuations in between.
It’s the Times that is massaging reality to promote a political agenda.
As I said, The Woodstock Times is not competent or trustworthy when it comes to science. Why would I consult the hippie/commie cult for science? I actually work in a scientific field.
When the climate change thing doesn’t pan out, the hippie/commie cult will just move on to another doomsday prophecy. I’ve been through quite a few in my 35 here. It’s good for laughs.
“Overwhelming evidence to the contrary” ? Compare this quote from the article above to ” There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to “decarbonize”the world’s economy (Wall Street Journal Jan. 27, 2012). The article in the WSJ is signed by sixteen prominent scientists in their field. For those interested in facts you can find it in the WSJ archives. It’s too bad because I think that the breezy article above was certainly fitting for the non-winter we are having that is until they attempted to interject pseudo science into the text.
A lovely book I have owned for many years, Wildflowers and Winter Weeds, by Lauren Brown, always makes the northeastern winter landscape more wondrous, and makes one pleased to find areas and gardens that have not been reduced to ‘tidy’ bits. Thank you for the article.
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“So how do people feel about this year without a winter? As you may have found by schmoozing around, most people love it.”
The above quote is from the article. To which I respond, most people with whom I “schmooze” are not loving the mild and relatively snow-less winter. Indeed, we not only delight in the manifestations of a true winter, but we are also alarmed at not having one. Is this winter part of a trend or an anomaly? It feels like weather anomalies are becoming more common. Why? And what might this portend?
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If you want real pseudoscience, go to Psychiatry, yet another liberal cause which doesn’t pan out. In the end though, it will save Woodstock’s Dr. Longmore, who will doubtless escape the clink by claiming the “mental illness” which secretly covered his overly prolific pain pill prescribing ways for years–all with the sanction of not only the peer group that runs the state OPMC–but with the People of the State of NY themselves–in and through funding that secret society.