Year 2, Month 7, Day 29: Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Our Lives

According to the Detroit News for July 13, the worsening climate is starting to hit a little closer to home:

Climate change is impacting some of the major national parks in the Great Lakes region, according to a report released today.

Michigan destinations such as Sleeping Bear Dunes, Pictured Rocks and Isle Royale National Park were among the five parks studied in a report that targets global warming as the cause of a host of negative impacts on the parks. Those include:

Birds dropping dead at Sleeping Bear Dunes due to outbreaks of botulism.

Declining moose population on Isle Royale in Lake Superior.

Temperature changes allowing Lyme disease-carrying ticks to show up for the first time on Isle Royale.

The deterioration of shorelines at each park resulting from decreased winter ice.

The study was put together by the conservation groups Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.

I visited Isle Royale as a kid when I was on a cross-country trip with my family. What a beautiful place. Sent July 13:

It’s been pretty easy for most Americans to dismiss concerns about climate change. Most people have believed for decades that the effects of global warming will be felt only in distant places or in the distant future. The NRDC/RMCO report on Michigan’s National Parks irrefutably confirms both that the Arctic and the Amazon aren’t the only places feeling the heat, and that the “distant future” has already begun. We can no longer claim ignorance; climatologists have predicted the disastrous consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect for years. What is happening to our National Park System is happening to our towns and cities, to our agriculture and to our oceans, and to the other countries with whom we share this planet. There may yet be time for us to bequeath a green and bounteous prosperity to our children and our children’s children — but the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

Warren Senders