By Carl D. Clarke, Jr.
Everybody thinks global warming is a long way off. It’s time to think about how global warming will affect us right here in Washington County. For instance:
Naked cats. Cats will shed all their fur. That means that there will be a lot of naked cats running around, looking like drowned rats. Cats will quickly lose their charm as favored, pampered pets. There won’t be cats named “Fluffy” or “Whiskers” anymore. A lot of them will wind up at the Animal Shelter. Who wants to sit with a drowned rat on his lap?
Holston Gorge. Holston Lake will dry up, which means that, when the water goes down, there will be a lot of unsightly trash to pick up. Who knows? We might finally find the remains of Jimmy Hoffa. It also means that there will be a lot of pontoon boats on the market cheap. I sold mine yesterday.
Palm trees. My wife Sweetness, who is from California, will finally get some palm trees in the back yard. And some yucca trees. She has missed them for the 27 years that we have been here. But when this area gets hot and dry, they will grow here. I think this is kind of like moving the mountain to Mohammed, but…
Orange groves. Here’s what I’m putting my money into. With the new hotter, dryer climate, oranges will thrive in Appalachia. Sweeter and juicier, Appalachian oranges will rival those grown in California. They won’t rival those grown in Florida, because there won’t be any oranges in Florida. Florida will be underwater.
Killer kudzu. With milder winters, kudzu will not die; it’ll just keep on growing. It will smother whole cities. People will give driving directions like this: “To get to Bluefield, you drive to where Wytheville used to be—before the kudzu ate it—and turn left.”
Population explosion. With much of the country underwater, people will stream into Appalachia. Washington County will become the home of the super-prime mortgage—prime plus 8 points. That is, if you can find anyone willing to sell.
Deer as big as elk. And twice as fast. In the warmer climate, whitetail deer will grow bigger and taller in order to browse the higher leaves. We’ll have to import lions and wolves to control the population. Then big game hunters from Europe and Asia will come here for safaris up into the mountains. The trophy hunters will be glad to find a place that still has some challenge. After all, the Serengeti will be a desert by then.
Real funny Mr Clarke, laugh this up buddy:
“Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them.“—Dr James Lovelock’s lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. ‘07
“Leemans and Eickhout (2004) found that adaptive capacity decreases rapidly with an increasing rate of climate change. Their study finds that five percent of all ecosystems cannot adapt more quickly than 0.1 C per decade over time. Forests will be among the ecosystems to experience problems first because their ability to migrate to stay within the climate zone they are adapted to is limited. If the rate is 0.3 C per decade, 15 percent of ecosystems will not be able to adapt. If the rate should exceed 0.4 C per decade, all ecosystems will be quickly destroyed, opportunistic species will dominate, and the breakdown of biological material will lead to even greater emissions of CO2. This will in turn increase the rate of warming”—Leemans and Eickhout (2004), “Another reason for concern: regional and global impacts on ecosystems for different levels of climate change,“ Global Environmental Change 14, 219–228
We’ve warmed 0.2 C/decade the last two decades.
Posted by Brad Arnold from on 06/25 at 02:48 AM
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