Jeremiad

There is no more graphic proof of global warming than the annual weather chart published in the New York Times every January. This year's edition was published today.

“New York City’s Weather in 2011,” which is compiled from Accuweather data, shows five record temperature highs for the year; record rainfall in May, June and August (the month of Hurricane Irene); record snowfall in January; the snowiest October and a tie for the least snowy December.

There were no record temperature lows.

This data, found only in the physical newspaper and not online, is for Central Park in New York City. My husband, the more scientifically inclined of the two of us, collects it. He showed me several years' worth of his collected annual charts, and we’ve been warming for some time. The last record low temperature was in January 2004.

Near the end of November 2011 it reached 70 degrees in New York City, a record, while one day in mid-December tied a record at 62 degrees. Between those points there were 15 days (not consecutive) of above-average temperatures. I saw a lot of people walking around in shorts enjoying the relative warmth during that time, telling TV news reporters how they hate snow, hate the cold and hope neither comes.

News flash: Winter in this region is supposed to be cold and snowy. I don't know about you but during those few below-average days during this period I heard a lot of bitching about having to deal with what seemed like extreme cold but was not when you look at the cumulative chart. It just felt that way after all that abnormal warmth.

Here’s another example: Bryant Park, one of the busiest parks in midtown New York City, has had some unusual birds hanging around including one or two of the largest warbler, the yellow-breasted chat. A lot of birds were also reported hanging around elsewhere in New York City as well as in central and southern New Jersey.

According to the New York Times chart, 2011 had the sixth-wettest September on record followed by the snowiest October, helped by the pre-Halloween storm (this picture is from the start of that storm) that destroyed still-leafy trees and left millions, including me, without power for anywhere from hours to weeks. Normally the birds that can’t migrate south at that time of year die because they can‘t get the food or the warmth they need this far north.

When the temperatures started rising late last year the birds in these warmer-than-usual areas found bugs, still-flowering plants plus the usual bird feeders to keep them alive. Birders were very happy about these unusual winter birds after complaining how all the rains and strong winds early in the year made for a mediocre spring migration - as in, there was little to see because the birds flew around the storms or got a helpful, strong push past this region.

This birder thinks we are in a world seriously out of balance, or koyaanisqatsi.

Extreme or lack of snowfall: My plants were buried under a mountain of plowed snow into February. Relatives in Minnesota and New Hampshire recently told me ski resorts were hurting in December because they didn't have any snow.

High winds and rain: Hurricane Irene hit New Jersey as a tropical storm. A tropical storm is one level below the lowest level of hurricane. So it wasn’t a big deal, right? Tell that to someone living along the Pompton, Passaic or Millstone rivers who is still trying to recover from water damage or having a house swept away.

Extreme heat: According to the Times’ chart, New York City had two consecutive record highs in July of 104 degrees and 100 degrees. The days leading up to and following those highs were also above normal, making July the fifth-warmest on record. When it is so hot, you need a lot of water. We did not run our sprinklers but as the grass went brown our lawn-worshiping neighbors did, usually in the middle of the day when it does the least good. Thanks to the unusually high amount of rain we had in March, April and May, we had no summer drought and the neighbors could get away with this wasteful behavior.

Meanwhile, many parts of the Midwest were hit with flooding from rain-swollen rivers. Many others were hit with a severe drought creating modern-day dust bowls. Texans were praying for some of Irene’s rains to put out wildfires destroying acres of land, to no avail. Crops were destroyed, cattle couldn‘t be fed. Prices of bread, fruit and dairy are going up.

There are people who believe there is no such thing as global warming. There are others who would do anything to sacrifice our air and water to cut dependence on OPEC oil during these hard economic times. They see hydraulic fracturing - fracking, for short - into rock for oil or gas as our savior, despite its potential to pollute vital groundwater.

They want to rip up the Earth to do this drilling, this century’s version of the clear-cutting that scarred the coal country of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. (Overdevelopment is another form of clear-cutting, for instance in New Jersey.) They also want to build more roads and factories and gut the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming companies would be more productive and expand their workforce if they didn't have to think about emissions or safety requirements.

Sorry, but this American worker still wants clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.

This country is all about the short-term fix and no long-term planning or even thinking about the consequences of our actions as we consume, consume, consume.

You buy fuel-guzzlers and wonder why gas is so expensive, roads are in disrepair and there is so much traffic. You pave over the woods and wonder why there is damage from increasingly common "100-year floods" caused by runoff when the heavy rains hit. You put houses where none should ever have been built and pour more concrete that holds more heat, helping create this unnatural endless summer. You run inefficient, dirty factories, then blame the laws protecting citizens from your pollution for "forcing" you to leave the country and your workers behind.

It is frustrating. I do what I can - including trying to make you think with this blog - but I’m only a cog in this whirling machine, alarmed by how fast we’re going, how we are doing things to go faster rather than slowing down, wondering how we’ll keep going and when we’re going to break down.

The usual cliche to write at this point is that you reap what you sow.
I wanted to find where in the Bible that is written and found it in Galatians 6:7-8.

But I found something else in my research, in Genesis 8:22. It‘s supposed to be comforting, about the balance of life:

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

How much longer do we have?

The aftermath

Early today, the day after Hurricane Irene struck, I was on the screened-in back porch, listening to the rain, trying to wake myself. The rain was coming down hard but I heard the “thief!” call of a blue jay.

Jays are not my favorite bird. They are noisy and hit the feeder hard and often, scaring off everything else. They will attack the young of others - I have seen one snatch up a baby house wren that had fallen from the nest box and make off with it before I could get out of my porch chair.

Today I’d never heard a sweeter call.

We all remember the story of Noah sending out a dove that came back with an olive branch, giving him hope the water was receding. The next time the dove was sent it did not return because the worst was over.

Birds are wonderful indicators of both good and bad. Days before the great tsunami that hit Indonesia a few years ago, the birds were among those leaving the area. Closer to home, if you see a gull inland a storm may be brewing off the coast. (Of course, gulls are just as likely to be Dumpster-diving with the crows nowadays, so seeing one inland may not be a sign of anything.)

On the good end, as happened today, when the pair of cardinals called to each other it meant Irene's rain was ending, the water table would recede and the worst was over.

We were lucky. We came through relatively unscathed. The worst was dripping from the ceiling that came into the attic and then into a smoke detector, setting it off around 2 am and scaring me out of a deep, dreamless sleep. My husband (MH) was awake, and would ultimately be awake for 34 straight hours tracking the storm, checking the attic (once he’d plugged the leak and put in tarps and buckets to catch any water) and especially checking on the sump pump that ran regularly all night as the water table rose.

After noon today it was the wind that became a problem. One past hurricane, Floyd, didn’t hurt us as he blew through but the backlash winds blew over a tree that took out the power lines for several days, forcing us to bring perishables to MH‘s parents, then a few towns away.

I remembered they now live in New Hampshire when, around 2pm, the winds picked up and the power went off.

Mercifully, it quickly came back on and has stayed on.

After already making three trips taking brush to the curb for pickup I will be rising early tomorrow to get the last of it. I will put back outside the thistle feeder for the goldfinches and will add the house feeder with sunflower seeds for the cardinals, my way thanking them for reminding me there's always hope.

I won’t even mind the jay coming to call.

Waiting for Irene

I am waiting for a hurricane.

When I went out earlier to run some errands, the streets in my part of town were quiet. No one out or around. The closer I got to town, the more traffic increased. A lot of people were acting like it was just another humid, overcast day.

Perhaps I should be that way, denying that just days after a major earthquake hit the region, a Category 2 storm 600 miles across is making its windy way through areas I know well - the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Delmarva peninsula, Cape May - straight for the greater NY area.

The coastal part of Brooklyn where I was born and where my parents and paternal grandparents lived is under mandatory evacuation. The part of Far Rockaway, Queens, where my maternal grandmother died is under mandatory evacation.

My life is tied to the shore, and Irene will be at her worst tomorrow on what would have been my mother's 91st birthday.

As I sit in what I hope is a sturdy house 30 or so miles west of New York City, I wonder about the birds. They have begun heading south - I found three types of warblers in one little area of Flat Rock Brook Park in Englewood within 2 minutes Friday morning - and unless they make a wide turn toward Pennsylvania they are going to head into a hurricane. A lot of birds may just come down where they are and stay put.

Many will die.

The sea birds may ride out the storm far into the ocean although I am sure there is at least one person on a south-facing beach, watching for a shearwater or storm-petrel to be blown in. That is nuts. I have taken in my thistle feeder and I hope the pair of goldfinches that had been using it are not blown out of one of my trees.

Category 1 or 2 hurricanes don't hit New York City that often, certainly not in the same week as a major earthquake, just in time for the new moon and higher tides. Remember all the snow of last winter in New Jersey? The unusual cold? The heavy spring rains and the intense heat that made May feel like August? There is something unnatural going on in Nature, and I hope those people who don't believe in global warming realize the error of their ways.

In the meantime I have done as much as I can but feel helpless at what may come. My husband, the scientific type, is monitoring TV reports and plotting the hurricane on his maps. It is his way of feeling like he is accomplishing something.

This post is my attempt. Godspeed.