A week of mid-eighties, mid-July temperatures in what used to be the last vestiges of late winter - climate change is coming at us like a freight train, fast and hard. Vermont is changing, getting hotter (a LOT hotter - temps in the Northeast are rising faster than most of North America), winter is shorter and much warmer, drought conditions, alternating with extreme rain events, are becoming more and more extreme and severe.
This is the new normal, at least for now, until climate feedbacks really kick into gear over the next decade or so and things start to change far more dramatically. This is the reality we've created and the reality we have to live with; the reality we're leaving our children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and so on. There will be no magic bullet, no superhero to the rescue, no amazing technological fix that somehow reverse the effects of humanity depleting Earth's resources and dumping wastes of every kind into a finite system. Will we avoid the absolute worst of global warming, and all the other ills humans are crippling the biosphere with? The evidence is not heartening, but time, and what's best and worst in us, will tell.
Meanwhile, the spring ephemerals are blooming, birds are out in force (and quite assertively vocal), and the first leaves are unfolding (after the invasives, of course). Which brings me to this somewhat delayed check in - now is the best time to see and pull (cut, chip, chop, whatever) invasive plants like honeysuckle, buckthorn, privet, and the best time to pull greater celandine and garlic mustard before they go to seed. Like weeding your garden, only on a landscape scale. And remember - it's not about getting everything all at once (unless you have small, manageable infestations); it's about consistency and persistence. Do a manageable amount of removal every time you have the chance - just pick something, and do it. Over time you WILL see a difference.
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