BELFAST, Maine — Heidi Brugger wanted Mainers to connect the dots between changes around the state and climate change, so she made actual dots. On Saturday morning, 15 people lined up the side of Route 1 in Belfast, holding signs for Climate Impacts Day.
Brugger wrote out short poems and divided them into several signs, so drivers could read them on their morning drive.
One of the poems, spread out on big, brown dots along the highway, read:
“Deer ticks bite
They make us sick
Invading Maine
Too darn quick
Climate change.”
“Climate change is making an impact on people’s lives. It affects business and lifestyle in Maine. Like when kids go to play in the woods, now they have to get checked for ticks. Thirty years ago, we never checked for ticks — there were no ticks in Maine,” Brugger said.
Ticks die when the ground enters a deep freeze in the winter, but because Maine has had warmer winters, there have been more ticks, Brugger explained.
The event was part of Climate Impacts Day, a special day organized by 350.org, a website that pushes for awareness that 350 carbon parts per million is the amount the Earth’s atmosphere can safely contain. It currently contains 392 parts per million, according to the website.
Amy Kennedy, 22, of Unity, took a break from finals week at Unity College to hold a sign. Hers was part of a maple syrup poem, “Maple sap slows its drip of syrup. We barely get a lick. Climate change.”
“This is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life — climate change activism,” said Kennedy, who will graduate next week with a degree in environmental policy. She got a job for a nonprofit in Boston working as an environmental activist.
Kennedy liked the Saturday morning protest because she said it connected extreme weather to climate change and to people’s daily lives.
“This resonates with people in Maine. They might see a lack of maple syrup, but this brings it to their attention with a focus on climate change,” she said, pausing to wave at cars that honked at her.
On the northbound side of the road, holding the “deer ticks bite” sign was Beverly Roxby. Roxby is a grandmother of two young boys and she worries about them inheriting a polluted, damaged planet.
“The public needs to be reminded that we care about this enough to stand outside on a dreary day and remind them,” Roxby said.
AT one time the spot where that woman is standing was covered in a sheet of ice a mile thick. The climate has certainly changed since then without man causing it.
The climate is certainly changing now and much more quickly than when the glaciers began receding.
Really? An increase of 1 degree is more drastic than the melting of a sheet of ice a mile thick?
You need to think in the aspect of geologic time. Think about how long it took the glaciers to form and move south than recede. Then apply the current average temperature change currently, a 1 degree difference is a lot in geologic time frame. Climate change also isn’t just temperature, it includes many things such as the changes in weather patterns, storm severity and occurrences, continental changes in landscape, etc…
Windmill farms are heating up the earth’s surface. How do you feel about that?
If anything, wind farms have a cooling effect as they remove energy from the atmosphere and convert it to electricity.
actually the fristion they create in the process of turning those massive blades creates heat, and the removal of thhe trees to place the turbines on hilltops creates heat from the loss of trees! Use some common sense for once!
All energy becomes heat eventually. Wind farms do speed this process by turning mechanical energy into electricity which then powers things that generate heat. This mechanical energy comes from three sources, geothermal, solar, and the earth’s rotation. The geothermal aspect is really just a redistribution of heat, decreasing the severity of the gradient between the under- and above-ground. The solar energy would have otherwise been sequestered in the chemical bonds in plant matter though much of that would have eventually been released by heterotrophs. The rotational energy becomes heat and also lengthens our days and nights (though by amounts so small they can hardly be said to have changed at all)
You fail to take into account the amount of solar energy that is absorbed by other surafce maater than plants and more imporantly the amount that is reraaiated back into the atmosphere as heat or infrared that is abosrbed by CO2, methane, etc.
Common sense is something you should have used before making this post.
What little friction there is created by the blades is minute because the more friction from the blades the less efficient the turbine. The use of lubricants greatly reduces any friction from the movement of the blades.
Removing trees from the environment does not result in an increase of heat. That could only be done by burning the wood from the trees which would be a temporary extremely localized source of heat. Removing trees can result in a increase in CO2 depending on how the wood is used after harvesting.
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Removing trees from the environment does not result in an increase of heat. ”
Have you never heard of evapotransport? You are completely wrong.
Evapotransport is the mechanism by which plants bring water from their roots to the leaves bringing water and nutrients to them. It can also cause more rainfall to occur in a particular area if the tree density is large enough.
In order to increase the temperature by removing trees you would have to remove most of the trees in the area. This is just not done when a wind farm is created. By definition a wind farm has to be in an area with consistent strong winds thus negating any effect of evapotransport cooling in that area.
It is you who is completely wrong if you are going to say wind farms increase the temperature in the area.
Do the math. Know the concept.
Trees have a cooling effect due to evaporation. Wind farms and their transmission lines and roads remove trees.
If you want to read an analysis on this, using NRCM’s own numbers, you will see that wind farms are a veritable joke compared to our old friend, the Maine Woods.
You will also see that the folks at NRCM are not very good at math.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/page/nrcm-s-co2-analysis
And what proportion of trees are removed in Maine, the most heavily forsted state in the Union, to install windpower?
Just the trees that sit atop ridges and mountain tops that people have admired for years. No big deal. Not everyone gets a hrd on when looking at windmills.
I’m not some “environut” as many are likely thinking. I just look at the science and realize that humans have a direct impact on our environment and are affecting the worlds climate whether or not people believe it. I’m not panicking over it, but I certainly believe that humans have a direct impact on the climate in a global setting. The question is not whether or not humans are causing it, but what we should be concerned with is how drastic and severe are the changes in the future. That I am not sure of and thus am not becoming a doomsday prepper over it. Humans have and do have a direct impact on the climate changing.
Huh?
Yeah, lets worry about geological time, lets not worry about people in need, you might need to think about reality.
Who said I’m not worried about events currently? Is the climate not something to worry about, because if things go real bad in the future (not saying it is, but not saying it isn’t as there is not enough to know how drastic the effect will be) who do you think is going to be feeling the brunt of that even more? The people that are already in need are the ones who will be the hardest hit. My comment had nothing to do with what you are implying, that I don’t care about current events and people now. My comment was for discussion and it is my belief that humans have had and do have a direct impact on the climate, but we have no way of knowing how great that effect will be. To deny that humans have an effect ont he world would be erroneous, just look at the science and make your own judgement.
That’s 1 dgree C. In a much shorter period of time. With obvious anthropomorphic input.
Moonbats here
Moonbats there
Holding signs
Slack jawed stare
Whether or not you believe there is an anthropomorphic component causing climate change, we as a species still have to deal with the consequences of climate change. Arguing about who is driving the bus that’s bearing down on you does not negate the necessity of getting out of the way.
Wooooooooooo! And it is not even halloween.
Denialists here, denialists there. Contemplating their navels, contributing nothing but hot air (pardon the lack of meter).
“(pardon the lack of meter).”
Liberalism on display. Cherry Blossom’s comment was good precisely because she worked it in within the constraints. Your attempt doesn’t work at all even if the reader pardons your lack of meter. Can you not succeed on a level playing field?
Fail.
Yes, oldmainer–but actually, the ice was TWO miles thick.
And it took over 100,000 years for the ice to form and retreat not 150 years
And the temperature increased a lot more than 1 degree.
Again, it is not the amount of the increase in temperature, although that is alarming in regards to our current civilizations and all the dangers that entail, but the short time interval that it is occuring in. If the plants and the animals that we depend on can not adjust fast enough they will go extinct. We are not removed from nature as much as some people would like to believe.
Scientists are already saying that we are in the start of a major extinction episode and as in all extinction episodes the top animals (that would be us) die off.
And it took over 100,000 years for the ice to form and retreat not 150 years
Care to mention that that was several thousand years ago and that the runup in temperatures that helped thaw the ice was preceded by a runup inCO2 levels. Granted, man didn’t have anything to do with it, but the effect was to be expected.
Another denialist empty arguement. The denialist emperor has no clothes.
Just say NO to Volcanoes.
Volcanoes actually cool the atmosphere temporarily by reducing the amount of solar energy reaching the lower atmosphere but volcanic gases like sulfur dioxide can cause global cooling, while volcanic carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, has the potential to promote global warming. So the effect of volcanoes are a net 0 towards global warming.
Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities? Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.” Human activities, responsible for a projected 35 billion metric tons (gigatons) of CO2 emissions in 2010 (Friedlingstein et al., 2010), release an amount of CO2 that dwarfs the annual CO2 emissions of all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2011).
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
Talk to the old timers about ticks. Before WW2 they were prevalent, then after the War they disappeared. I believe the difference was DDT which was used everywhere on everything at the drop of a hat after the War. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, sleeping out many nights in the summer, I never saw a tick either, and only knew about them from insect books. Then we stopped using DDT, and it degraded in the environment, and now we have ticks. Coincidence? We need to look at DDT again, without the hysteria that Rachel Carson and her followers created. By the way, bald eagle numbers were already rising when DDT was banned.
And yes…thank goodness for climate change. My property value has risen considerably in the last 11,000 years.
Yes but these people have only lived in Maine a few years. Old timers try to avoid them.
That is the most insane comment I’ve seen in a long time. Education would benefit you greatly.
Wow! slam and dunk by a wiser, more educated, better-than-thou earthling living outside of the main stream.
You are not serious are you? I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s too and see things quite differently than you do. But I guess this is what is great about living here all our lives. We can agree to disagree respectfully.
Let us not forget the invasion of bed bugs.
zzzzzzzz zzzzzzz zzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzz……………
So if Ms. kennedy’s “climate change activism” career, leads to the reversal of the PPM of carbon in the atmosphere, and it works too well and goes too far in the opposite direction, what then?
If human’s had never been on this planet to “screw it up”, what would the temperature and weather have been Saturday, in what is now known as Belfast Maine? Fair question to ask. If one can say we have “changed” it, one must also be able to say what it would have been.
With 7 billion perple and climbing, there’s no chance of our reveresing CO2 “too far”.
These comments give the deniers a good chance to demonstrate their ignorance.
And the Chicken Littles a chance to show how smaht they are.
… and the denialists a chance to demonstrate how they aren’t.
Bring it on.
Global warming is payback for all those flatlandahs that moved here, payed outrageous prices for land, settled near the water and drove away the working man.
They left their existence behind because of what they are now causing to happen here.
Climate change is part of the history of Earth. It is certainly happening faster now because of human activity. We need to be conscious of the impact we have. Unfortunately I fear it is only going to get worse for my grandchildren. I am glad people are working to keep climate change in the forefront.
I’m disappointed the words “Burma Shave” were not used in the story.
If your worrying about climate change go to China and India to protest that’s where the problem are coming from.
Good answer, we wait to do anything until the Chinese and Indians do something and they’ll wait until we do something. How about we fix the things that we do to affect climate and hopefully the Chinese and Indians will too.
By the way China is workign to reduce their dependance on coal power plants because to the pollution they have and so is India but America is still saying we can’t do anything because it will costs us money.
If the bogus claim of global warming is behind this disease, tell me why it is not expanding its range in the south?
http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps/interactiveMaps.html
Go ahead, make something up.
Because the south is warmer than the optimum temperature range of the tick responsible for spreading Lyme Disease while the north is warming up and extending the optimal range for the tick.
Where’s your source?
You asked for a possible reason why Lyme Disease is not spreading south. I gave you one very valid reason possible why.
But Lyme disease is spreading south
http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2012/02/ultimate-lyme-disease-map
The tick that carries the Borrelia infection live in temperate forested areas of northern Asia and Europe (especially central and eastern Europe) and the United States (especially north-eastern, north central and Pacific coastal USA). Which is another reason why they are spreading faster north than south. The tick prefers a particular type of forrest not found as commonly in the south.
http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/factsheets/infectious/lyme_disease.html
Too funny! Where was Gore? Are there not other stories needing printing besides that waster of time and human energy?
How about the waste of time and electrons by the denialists?
ilovetoshopping.com
Better than brown circles, for the sake of us oldtimers, use red rectangles a la Burma Shave signs.