The Parade of Flowers marching to the beat of Climate Crisis

It is bittersweet to get gorgeous June days in the first days of April. Yes, we love it. No, we can’t enjoy it guilt-free. Vermont’s spring came too early this year. And 2010 is aiming to be the warmest on record. This is a changing atmospheric climate.

I love to watch the swift return of Life to the landscape. In a few weeks, Vermont goes from frozen-under-snow to summer time’s Green Everywhere. Biologist classify Vermont’s ecology as “Temperate Rainforest.”

Plants decide when to awake because of temperature. Warm spring temperature’s bring a parade of flowers, a sequential revealing of different plants making the beautiful mad dash to reproduction. In early spring, the small plants race ahead before big plants fill the space with big leaves: the Snowdrops, the Crocuses, the Daffodils. In late May, the whole plant kingdom makes a mad dash towards growth and seed-making. The parade of flowers is more purple early on, and more orange and red later in the season.

Unusually warm days in the spring risks “tricking” the plants too early. These delicate ecosystems adapted to centuries of stable temperatures. Climate Change risks upsetting this delicate timing sequence. What if spring comes in February in a few years, and then the snow returns, but all the trees have broken bud?

We live in a tightly wound ecosystem. Spring’s delicate unfolding is seriously in jeopardy because of climate change. Humans need to live in the reality of our biological life-web ecosystem, the ground floor of our existence. We need to stop burning coal and oil, and start moving at full speed to a post-carbon world. Otherwise, someday, spring may spring in January, then backtrack, leaving a confused parade.

Many gardeners are observing a two week drift towards earliness in plants. In England, the arrival of the Lilacs is two weeks ahead. All things being equal, that’s fine. But an ecosystem is complex. What about the birds who are arriving from South America too early or late for the awakening bugs?

The world’s ecosystem’s are being thrown out of rhythm. Nature is supposed to be a joyous, well-organized symphony but burning coal is turning Nature into a arrhythmic Free Jazz cacophony.

So come on, people, let’s get on it.