Citizens Climate lobby Roscommon/Crawford Chapter

Roscommon/Crawford Chapter Farming and Climate Change Today's news is all about the corona virus, so it is easy to let climate change concerns slip to the back burner of our collective consciousness. One of the immediate effects of the virus is how quickly it provoked food shortages and yielded bare shelves at grocery stores. Everyone hopes these shortages are temporary; that once the virus disappears the world food supply will return to normal. Given the lack of progress in combating climate change, that is unlikely. The fact is "climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity, and agriculture feels its effects in profound ways," according to a leading supplier to the international agricultural industry. As you know from reading our Climate Change Blogs, effects of climate change include drought, severe heat, flooding, storm and fire danger depending upon where you live. All these things hurt agriculture. Still think climate change w...

Roscommon/Crawford Chapter The Face of Change Just in case you didn’t know, the cherubic, girl-child face looking out at you above is 17-year-old Greta Thunberg, the most famous teen-ager in the world, known simply as Greta, the face of climate change among the world’s young people. She has some 17 million followers who watch her posts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. She addresses diplomats, politicians and business tycoons and they all know her name. She has been applauded by former president Barack Obama, Pope Francis, French president Emmanuel Macron, Al Gore, Prince Charles and the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres to name only a few. She was Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019, and has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Among the world’s leaders she stands unequalled as the spokesperson best known for climate change activism. Greta came upon her fame by her ability to lecture the world’s leaders, speaking simply and forthrig...

Roscommon/Crawford Chapter Many of us who live in Roscommon and Crawford Counties have an affinity for our wild places and wildlife as we pursue hunting, fishing and myriad other outdoor activities that our area offers. Sadly, climate change promises changes that will degrade our environment. The first to feel the impact of these changes will be wildlife that inhabit ours and other northern areas. Most wild animals are negatively affected by our warming climate. One of the few critters that benefits from warmer weather are ticks as their populations have exploded: Ticks love warm, humid weather, just the thing that climate change is bringing to many forests in the north that were formerly too cold for their tastes. Some of the species of ticks that are on the increase are disease-carrying, including those that carry Lyme disease. Populations of ticks are  projected to increase nearly twofold in the U.S. and up to fivefold in Canada as warmer, humid weather bec...

My First Climate Change Blog Rocommon/Crawford Chapter of Ccl leaders decided at a recent meeting to give our crack editorial team a brief respite from their blogging work by asking another member of our group to prepare a blog. Here is the first effort from Wylie, a relatively new member. Hello. My name is Wylie and this is my first blog. Whoee! I am a little new at this so I’ll start at the beginning. I attended my first Chapter meeting recently because of my buddy Earl. He had attended one meeting before me and he urged me to come to the next meeting with him. I asked him why. “Its because they give you free pizza just for attending,” he said with a big grin. That was good enough for me so Earl and I attended the next meeting at the Gahagan Center in Roscommon. The meeting was interesting. Our leaders talked about a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t know, mostly about problems being brought on by pollution of our atmosphere. I didn’t say much as I was mostly waiti...

Roscommon/Crawford Chapter And the answer is … Wait a minute! Wait a minute, what is the question? As the popular game show Jeopardy! teaches, the appropriate answer depends upon the precise phrasing of the question. Before hearing the question, you should know it is probably the most important question of our time. By the way, this blog also yields the answer we promised to provide in our last blog. Here is the question: What shall we do about climate change? What shall we do to save ours and the next generation of humans, animals, and plants from the ravages of floods, fires, and increasing temperatures that wreak havoc with our planet? The answer is … we must reduce man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. We must stop wanton polluting of the thing we need most for life to continue as we know it, and as our parents and theirs knew it in their lifetimes. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions sounds easy, but how can we reduce u...

Roscommon/Crawford Chapter Editor’s Note -We at the Roscommon/Crawford Chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby were moved to action by the recent comments from Harold E Goodbottom, Jr. (see last blog). At a meeting of our Chapter editorial staff, we determined that we needed to answer Mr. Goodbottom’s various arguments. Ours was a contentious meeting; several of our members asked for the privilege of refuting Mr. Goodbottom’s ill-informed opinions by preparing an answer that provided science-based information. In the end, we decided on the only fair choice of choosing an author. We pulled straws. Since Mr. Goodbottom demanded the right to sign his name, we are breaking our normal practice of anonymity to advise that our chapter member Rod (Fish) Torn won the straw pulling contest and is the author of this report. (Fish is shown below as he pummels our previous author) Science-based Arguments Supporting Climate Change              ...

*Alternate Facts What do most people believe concerning climate change ? Mark me down as a northern Michigan man who has reservations about this so-called climate change. The climate has always been changing, I say. It’s a lot different now than when I grew up. For example, if you wanna talk about cold winters, when I was a boy it weren’t nothin’ special when the snow went up past my knees. Now, iffen we happen to get a foot of snow someone yells climate change and the politicians hurry to spend my money on sumpin’ else we don’t need. I’d like to hear one of these climate change fellars ‘splain’ to me how we had ice ages in the past and that wasn’t climate change then, but now a little warmer weather makes it climate change and the sky is falling in according to the climate experts. Besides, the Lord Almighty controls our weather and I’m sure he wouldn’t let all the bad things happen that the climate change folks are now talkin’ about. Oh, well, the flood ...