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This hemlock log shows climate change

Climate change has been a normal and natural fact of life on Planet Earth since the planet was created. Volcanoes explode and the earth warms up as a result. Glaciers that build up covered entire mountain ranges underneath, then recede and create new mountain ranges, then melt again, and their flood waters created new rivers, several times. Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek in the “PA Grand Canyon” used to flow north into the Genesee River watershed, until a huge ice dam from the last glacial period melted, broke, and caused an enormous torrent of water to flood southward. In that brief moment about ten or twelve thousand years ago, naturally occurring climate change forced Pine Creek to flow south, where it has become a major tributary to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.

Climate alarmism is quite another thing, a false thing, a made-up thing, a silly thing, a destructive thing, and it is ruining a basic scientific fact that should be easy to study and understand.

Climate alarmism is where political activists falsely claim that “scientists agree that humans are causing Planet Earth’s climate to change” and that all Americans and Europeans (not the Chinese or the Indians) must therefore make drastic changes to our lifestyles, to our diets, to our freedoms. This is a fake emergency, a fake crisis, designed to help political activists get political outcomes they can not otherwise get through the democratic voting process where informed voters choose elected officials and policy positions themselves.

To illustrate how climate change naturally occurs all on its own, I took a picture and posted it here. Below is a picture I took of a roughly 160-year-old hemlock tree that a logger I work with cut down in Clinton County, PA, a month ago. If we look at the growth rings in the base of this tree, we see clusters of rings that are very wide, where the tree grew a lot in one growing season (April – September), and we see clusters of rings where the tree grew very little in one season. What is really interesting about looking at tree growth rings is that we can easily understand the climate surrounding that tree at the time of each growth ring.

Wide growth rings are associated with both an open forest canopy and lots of sunlight reaching the tree, and also with years of plenty of rain and warm temperatures conducive to plant growth after the canopy has grown up and over.

Thin or narrow growth rings are associated with a dramatic lack of sunlight, a lack of water, and/ or colder temperatures.

As we can see from this picture, this 160-year-old tree has experienced several major climate shifts over its lifetime. Each colored box is a clump of similar growth rings, which represents a period of about ten to twenty years. See how this tree went for a decade or two subject to long stretches of either very wet and warm climate, or very dry and cold climate? And we know that this tree’s life experience was largely outside of the period where the climate alarmists say humans have had the greatest influence on climate.

This tree’s life, as we see it in its growth rings, clearly shows that northcentral Pennsylvania’s climate has naturally fluctuated on its own, with no meaningful human intervention, for a long time. The picture also shows that within periods of intense dryness, there were single years of abundant rain, and then the dryness returned for years.

Today, climate alarmists seize upon every dry spell, every rainy period, every storm, to falsely claim evidence of human-caused “climate change.” If what the climate alarmists say is true, then this poor tree has had both a schizophrenic life in a natural world where equilibrium is more the natural rule, and it also experienced a lot of human caused climate change while the planet had very few humans on it to affect the climate.

In other words, this tree shows that the climate alarmists are wrong. Really wrong. The trees don’t lie, but the political activists do lie. And that fact is alarming to me.

Hemlock log cut in July 2023, in Clinton County, PA. This tree has experienced widely varying climates over its long lifetime, especially while there were very few humans on Planet Earth. There is no such thing as human caused climate change. Environmental damage, yes, of course, but not climate change. Climate alarmism is a political claim, not a scientific claim.

Seasonal weather changes are natural, welcome

Seasonal changes are natural tick-tocks on the world’s clock.

Following a natural cycle keeps us in tune with nature, even if the conditions aren’t always to our liking.

Cold arrived today.

Driving north on Friday, I photographed the “polar vortex” front as it closed in on central Pennsylvania. It was a dramatic sight, indeed, and heralded the coming of winter.

Right away, I spoke out loud to myself about the need to buy new knobby tires for the truck.  A long, cold, snowy winter is ahead, and I need to be as prepared as possible. Winter isn’t too challenging, if I’ve prepared for it.

Tonight we got our first wood fire going, after cleaning out the wood stove and adding new fire bricks. About a cord of last year’s split oak remains before we begin burning the oak that Viv, Isaac and I split this past spring. By the time we burn through the left over wood, the new wood should be completely dry. We will burn between three and four-and-a-half cords this winter at home.

Wood is a natural, sustainable, renewable heat source whose carbon is part of the planet’s natural cycle. We plant a lot of trees, and they absorb carbon to grow big. It’s a closed loop, which is appealing.

Living life according to the planet’s rhythms is natural and healthy. Will you get cold? Sure. That’s part of living. And if you think it’s cold here, check out Minnesota or Wisconsin or Idaho. Not to mention Alaska.

Just put on long undies and get some Filson wool jackets and vests. You might end up enjoying the cold weather. I certainly do.

OK, belay that last “let it snow”

Like you and most everyone I know around Pennsylvania, I feel done with the snow. Yes, did I say “let it snow” a bunch yesterday?  Well, that was then and this is now.  Now, we are expecting another eight to twelve inches of snow in the next day.  On top of the six to eight inches of hardened crust, ice, and snow already on the ground, another foot is going to keep spring from arriving for a long time.

This much snow puts a stranglehold on our business operations.  Shuts down machinery.  Trucks cannot pick up, guys cannot cut, or even drive their trucks, let alone get their machines moving.

What really is telling about this cold is that at home, we have burned a solid three-plus cords of seasoned oak firewood.  We may be closing in on four burned to date.  We have enough to take us into the end of the longest cold winter, but that just means more work felling, cutting, hauling, splitting, and stacking. You know the old saw — “Firewood warms ya twice.”  You work hard making it, and then it warms you as a fire.  Indeed.

Hold on there, fellow Pennsylvanians.  Spring must be just around the corner.  Just a few weeks from now, the air should be in the mid-forties, smelling slightly earthy and damp, and a robin here and there will join the cardinal in the back yard.  Then you know relief is upon us.  Hold on.  You are in good company.