Design

As a long-term nature observer and gardener, there are many signs of climate change. The most striking are extreme weather patterns. Predicted by a number of climate change models, variability in rainfall and temperatures may be the most telling indicators. In my part of the world, we've seen warmer winters (in night-time lows), drought and deluge (definitely yes), and drier summers (certainly in the recent decade of drought). Is this 'normal'? Maybe, but it seems to indicate that increasingly, human-induced inputs are affecting global climatic patterns in unprecedented ways. I'm glad to lend a voice to Blog Action Day efforts to promote awareness on this issue.

Bloggers all over the world are posting environmental messages today as part of Blog Action Day. It's fundamental for the earth's stability and the long-term survival of humans as a species that we, as part of the world community, commit our hearts, minds, and actions to living as lightly as we can on Earth. When there were many fewer of us (humans), resource exploitation and extraction was sustainable. Now that there are 6 billion plus of us, and we all want stuff, electricity, water on demand, and bigger houses, we've got a big problem. When I was a graduate student, I read Limits to Growth, a visionary book about how we'd run out of essential resources if the world population kept growing, and everyone kept consuming (like Americans). Unfortunately, their predications were delayed by technological innovation, and folks who don't understand the limits of the ecological capacities of our planet started to talk about how we'd be able to invent our way out ...