Climate

Giant Sequoia National Monument

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The US Forest Service manages this national monument inside the Sequoia National Forest in California. I took the photo on the popular Trail of 100 Giants in the south part of the monument, and you can see some of the fire damage from many huge carbon-pollution driven wildfires. Outside the monument, the devastation is far worse, and I drove through over 30 miles of fatally burned trees to get to the protected Giant Sequoia grove above.

Despite all the fossil fuel and timber industry attempts to avoid talking about the actual cause of the unprecedented new age of fire, it’s very clear that the climate surrounding these groves has changed dramatically due to man. The snow is on the ground for a much shorter period of time, the air and soil are drier, the temperature is higher and there’s even more wind and lightning. These trees evolved for cold, high altitude winters with lots of runoff all year long from snowmelt. On a hot day, a mature Giant Sequoia needs to consume 500 to 800 gallons of water. Today, the creek is tiny, the soil is very dry and the climate is much hotter than it was before the oil industry began. Forest fires, once limited to small areas in cold wet forests, now burn unprecedented huge areas, hotter than ever before, for a longer fire season than ever before. Make no mistake, the primary threat to these trees is our carbon pollution.

The few remaining multi-thousand year old Giant Sequoia are surrounded by giant stumps, where loggers once cut them down to make shingles and pencils, seen at places like Stump Meadows in the north part of the monument. Environmentalists began saving the groves, creating Sequoia National Park in 1890 and expanding the area over the years to protect more groves. Clinton made this grove a national monument in 2000. Now the forest service must treat the groves as special gardens, regularly removing other trees, spraying fire retardant in the area, wrapping famous trees with fire resistant tarps, and even using sprinklers and helicopters to spray thousands of gallons of water per day to protect specific trees from imminent fires.

I first visited the Trail of 100 Giants with my family many years ago, when we appreciated the stroller-friendly hiking trail. Years later, my grown kids wanted to stop here again, and I took the photo below on August 14, 2020. I remember saying how terribly dry everything was. A few days later, I was driving them north on I-5, and I watched the incredible lightning storm that sparked the SQF Complex fire that burned 171,000 acres around here, killing around 10,000 Giant Sequoias. I remember saying that it was the most lightning I had ever seen in my life. The next year there was the 98,000 acre Windy Fire, which killed 1,000 Giant Sequoias, and also the 88,000 acre KNP Complex Fire, which killed 2,000 Giant Sequoias. And the fires continue to threaten the last remaining groves, while we continue burning fossil fuel unnecessarily.

National Parks to Visit in May

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See January, February, March, and April. May is a great month to visit many parks, especially river and forest parks that are full of life in spring. I recommend Congaree, Cuyahoga Valley, New River Gorge, Olympic and Yosemite.

Congaree is a great place to kayak, so high water may allow you to roam more. But May is also when the fireflies all blink together. Recreation.gov holds a lottery in early April for evening passes during the week long synchronous firefly event mid May.

Cuyahoga Valley is popular in May as the Brandywine Falls are awash and the trails are surrounded by spring greenery. I like biking there, and the tourist trains run a full schedule in May also taking bikes.

New River Gorge may be best in May as the wildflowers are out on the trails, the temperature is just right, and the river runs fast for rafting.

Olympic for me is all about the rainforest. Go early, wear good hiking boots, a thermal layer and rain gear, but try to visit Hoh Rainforest and hike the Hall of Mosses when it’s wet and green. Visiting the rainforest is a unique national park experience, unlike mountain hikes or beaches. The park is beautiful during the summer, but it gets very crowded at Hoh beginning Memorial Day weekend.

Yosemite’s waterfalls all flow strong in May, and Bridalveil, Sentinel and Yosemite Falls are spectacular at peak snowmelt. Wildflowers bloom on the valley trails, the temperature is pleasant during the day, and it’s not as crowded as summer. Glacier Point viewpoint usually opens to vehicles in May, earlier now that there’s less snow.

You may notice that my recommendations on when to visit are often a little earlier than common advice, and that’s usually to avoid crowds, to take advantage of planning and because the climate is changing. Planning ahead is particularly important for saving time and money, as a simple campground reservation made six months in advance can put you in the best possible location at the best time for $30. Summer used to be the best time to visit most national parks, but many parks are now too crowded and too hot in July and August. But stay tuned, because I’ve got more national parks recommendations coming on the first Friday of each month.

Yes, Carbon Emissions Are Dangerous Air Pollution

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At Drakes Well, I had a long discussion with a guy there who was very much in denial that carbon emissions were a problem. He claimed that Rockefeller invented the term ‘fossil fuel’ (false), arguing that oil still forms at a rate that it will never run out (false). He said that vehicle emissions today are so much cleaner than when he was young that they’re no longer dangerous (false). When I asked him whether it was safe now to stay in a garage with the engine running, he switched tactics.

Since February is national indoor air quality month, now is a good time to consider the consequences of carbon emissions on breathing at home. First, if you have a gas stove, then you’re releasing both fuel and combustion fumes indoors. Next, if you burn wood for heat, you’re doing the same. Smoking obviously worsens air quality. If you idle your car to warm it up, then you’re generating carbon emissions near your home, some of which will enter.

Outdoor air pollution impacts indoor air quality. Droughts and wildfires increase dust and smoke that enter buildings. Heat, smoke and vehicle emissions also increase smog, which exacerbates asthma. Changing our environment this way also increases bacteria, dust mites, fungal infections like Valley Fever, mildew, and mold.

Partly in response to the climate crisis, more homes are insulated and have air conditioning. The more insulation, the more indoor air is recirculated. When properly installed and well maintained, they can help air quality, but when not maintained, they can hurt it. In any case, installing HVAC and air filters gets expensive and consumes more energy, burning more fossil fuel.

Rising carbon in the atmosphere causes huge derechos, dust storms and haboobs to form more frequently and become more intense. Heat pulls moisture into the air, exacerbating droughts and increasing wildfires. Smoke causes lung and heart problems. (February is also American Heart Month.) Loss of forests degrades air quality. Storm surges often release industrial pollutants into the air. All of these effects can combine, health issues can accumulate, and rising carbon emissions will increase all these problems.

We may be able to maintain our indoor air quality by spending more on it, but outdoor air quality matters too, especially for wildlife. We also like to go outdoors for fresh air occasionally, but smog and smoke obscure our views and make it difficult to exercise. My kids spent far more time inside than I did growing up, and we lose something important when we can’t go outside to play. By changing the global environment with our carbon emissions, we are responsible for the impact that has on all the creatures that live outdoors.

If You Really Cared About Border Security, You Would Stop Burning Carbon.

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Because you burn carbon, you exacerbate the climate crisis, which causes rising seas and more disasters. The US is responsible for more total carbon emissions than any other country, creating refugees and increasing migration globally. Maybe you neither know nor care about people in other countries, but your carbon emissions are driving migrants to the US. Nicaragua alone has over 100,000 climate refugees due to increasingly violent hurricanes and severe drought wiping out crops and cattle. These problems increase poverty and weaken their government, causing many to flee to other countries, especially the US. If you don’t want a lot more immigrants in the US, then you should stop burning carbon and vote for carbon reduction policies.

Understand that the unprecedented scale of these disasters is man-made, climate-driven and increasing at a rate that humanity has never faced. The problem is not just the disasters we are seeing now. The problem is that we are continuing to make even more disasters even worse every year. Carbon pollution makes disasters more deadly, driving dramatic diasporas and magnifying violent conflict, which causes wars and even more refugees. Wars burn even more carbon. Burning carbon increases border insecurity globally, so the underlying problems are accelerating.

Already, there are tens of millions of climate refugees globally, in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America. Extreme heat and drought drive violent conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, Syria & Yemen. But in 15 years, the number of countries with similarly extreme climate crises is expected to rise from 10 to 65. Flooding has already displaced millions of refugees in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Many of the countries currently hosing refugees are already suffering or will suffer severe climate consequences themselves soon, including millions already displaced in China and the Philippines. As the climate crisis continues to worsen and intensify, the total number of refugees globally will increase dramatically.

Whether you care about the human suffering or not, more and more climate migrants will continue trying to reach the US every year. Increasing border security is extremely expensive. Last year the US allocated an additional $170 billion for more border fencing, Customs and Border Patrol, ICE, new detention facilities, surveillance, etc. Given that the global climate refugee problem is accelerating exponentially, future costs will continue rising even more rapidly. Spending more on solar and wind would lower both energy costs and future costs of dealing with climate refugees. Fixing the climate crisis is the most direct way to reduce the disasters that drive migrants here.

Refusing refugees is cruel. Desperate people historically have also found many ways to enter the country, including flying and overstaying their legal visas. Deporting long term residents to countries that they haven’t seen since infancy is also cruel and can be quite expensive with airfare and legal costs. Spending more on relief programs like USAID both saves lives and reduces the future costs of dealing with climate refugees. And of course, it is not moral to refuse assistance to hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings who will be displaced by our cumulative carbon emissions.

January is National Trafficking Month, and refugees are among the most vulnerable populations forced into human trafficking operations. So choosing to reduce carbon emissions is choosing to reduce human trafficking. Politicians may talk tough on border security, but if they deny the climate crisis, they may be worsening rather than fixing the problem. You may consider yourself anti-crime, but if you vote for people who call climate change a hoax, encourage cryptocurrencies and have personal history with sex-traffickers, then you are contributing to human trafficking on multiple fronts.

So don’t tell me you care about border security, prove it. Stop burning carbon, and vote for climate justice. Fix the climate crisis to increase global border security and human safety.

National Parks to Visit in January

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In case you want to visit all the National Parks in the contiguous US, this year I’m sharing my recommendations for 3-5 National Parks to visit each month. By the end of the year, you’ll have a full list of all 51 parks, evenly spread out over the different seasons with as few compromises as possible.

Since January is typically the coldest month, it makes sense to visit southern Florida, the only tropical climate in the continental US. That means Biscayne, the Dry Tortugas and the Everglades. These are beautiful parks for enjoying snorkeling, beaches and nature outdoors, so January is a great month for avoiding the hot, humid weather with afternoon thunderstorms that would bother you much of the rest of the year.

Hurricane season is lengthening, and now some tropical storms form in May before the official season of June through November. I visited the Dry Tortugas in May with an eye on the weather, and I was lucky. Some see sea turtles up close, but I was not lucky. Nesting beaches are often off-limits, and the water visibility wasn’t as clear for snorkeling as it would be in January. If you want to see the turtles, take the short, low altitude seaplane out to the Dry Tortugas, and you will see them swimming all year long.

Sometimes a winter storm will bring winds down to the keys with cold snaps in the 50s, but they don’t last. Many places that rent snorkel gear will have various wetsuits to keep you comfortable, if needed, but the water temperature usually stays above 70° F. Day highs are around 75° F, and most evenings are very mild.

Since the Everglades are dry in January, wildlife tends to concentrate around reliable water sources, making them easier to spot. Birding is best in January, as many migratory birds are in the park, and large charismatic birds like roseate spoonbills and wood storks are laying eggs. And there are few mosquitoes in January.

Weather makes a big difference in how much we enjoy our park visits, so—despite the high season costs—, I recommend visiting these three tropical parks in January, when most other parks are cold, closed and difficult to access. Plan ahead, be flexible on where to stay, and be efficient with your time to save money. But enjoy your time on a tropical beach or amongst the mangroves while others are home shoveling snow.

Imagining the Road Ahead

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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! I’m introducing two new topics for next year, more at the end.

Nobody wants our climate to destabilize, and yet that is what we’re doing. In my last installment on better thinking, I wrote about how this blog is a product of imaginative thinking, and below are some more specific points.

Rational people base their thinking on logic and knowledge. The Farmer’s Almanac was able to predict the weather for over 200 years with remarkable accuracy simply by carefully recording weather patterns. Seasons used to be stable enough to plan your crops well. But, in a sign of the times, the old Farmer’s Almanac is going out of business. I don’t know whether climate change had anything to do with their decisions, but accurately predicting weather based on past history is now unreliable. (And, now that the National Center for Atmospheric Research is going to be closed, both climate and weather forecasting will suffer.)

In early June of 2022 I visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, and as I was driving back to California, the weather changed. There was a late season heavy snowfall in the mountains, followed by heavy rain. I remember thinking that the return to warmth and rain would melt all that late snow very quickly, so I decided not to dawdle. A few days later, the Yellowstone River washed out a whole bunch of roads after I passed.

They called the Yellowstone event a ‘500 year flood’, trying to put the event into historic context. But terms like ‘100 year floods’ no longer make sense, because the climate has already changed so much that the floods happen far more frequently either than expected or than they ever did in our written history. A biennial ‘25 year’ flood is oxymoronic.

Bereft of precedents, we need to use our imagination more when we plan the road ahead. You may have planned to retire to some beachfront property like the Outer Banks, but rising seas and more severe storms may make that much riskier than expected. Or maybe you planned a cabin in the woods, but increasing wildfires risk that dream as well. Or maybe you planned to move to a desert retirement community, but rising heat waves and diminished water are making that unsustainable. Or snorkeling coral reefs, now irrevocably damaged. Or seeing glaciers, now disappearing. Of course, there will still be plenty of beautiful places to visit and wonderful experiences to have, but our poor carbon choices are diminishing some of them rapidly. So we need to think ahead.

And it’s not easy. The most arable land in Canada is already farmed for crops like wheat, and much of the rest of the soil is a poor thin layer over the rocky Canadian Shield. So any fertile farms lost to sea level rise in Alabama are not going to be replaced in Labrador. And warmer average global temperatures do not mean an end to winter. Winter is caused by our tilted earth’s angle to the sun, so Greenland will still be dark and mostly uninhabitable for long winter months. Instead, some places in the southwestern US may become practically uninhabitable for long hot summers.

Seasons will continue and will increase in importance as weather becomes more extreme. In the long evolutionary fossil records, the species that are small, light and highly mobile tend to do better than slow moving, heavy creatures that spend all their time in one place, especially in times of climate change. Obviously, being the first species theoretically capable of diverting an asteroid, it’s shameful that we’re not trying harder to avoid the mass extinctions that we’re going to cause with our carbon emissions.

Considering all this I am writing two new monthly series for Saturdays next year. At the beginning of the month I will recommend which national parks to visit in which months, with a few adjustments for the changing climate. And mid-month, I will write about relevant climate consequences. I encourage you to use your imaginative thinking to make the most of your road ahead.

Landscape of Grand Pré

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UNESCO chose to emphasize the land reclaimed by the Acadians, but the emotional power of the place is conveyed in Longfellow’s epic poem, Evangeline. The British, often at war with their rivals the French, gathered up thousands of neutral Acadian civilians, many whose families had lived in Nova Scotia (and nearby areas) for a hundred years, loaded them on ships and forcibly deported them to France and various colonies. The Grand Dérangement began in 1755, lasted 9 years, deported over 80% of the 14,000 Acadians, and 5,000 of those died due to shipwrecks, disease and starvation. A cross marks the spot where families were loaded into small boats, often separated, and taken on the dramatic tides out to ships in the bay.

The land is important too. The British certainly wanted control of the productive farming land that the Acadians had reclaimed from the sea using a remarkable system of dykes and aboiteaux or sluice gates. Tens of thousands of acres of farmland lies below high tide here, drained by one way gates in massive 17th century dykes. The replacement English speaking settlers, many from New England, maintained the dykes, and today’s warming climate allows vineyards on the surrounding hills. My cousin kindly showed me a working sluice gate, now operated remotely, and we walked along one of the dykes, appreciating the innovation and contemplating the rich red mud cut in deep channels.

Through our inaction on carbon pollution, we cause the sea to rise and claim our productive land. We cause hundreds of millions to be displaced, forcing refugees to move inland. We cause huge economic costs and more deaths due to disease, heat, pollution, starvation and storms.

It is easy today to say that the British were wrong to deport the Acadians. Yes we must admit that we’re committing a far worse global atrocity through our indifference to our carbon emissions.

Here are my visits to all UN sites in the Maritimes.

Favorites from All 508 Sites in 48 States

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Late this year, I visited my 395th park site, earning a rare park stamps award for all official NPS sites in the 48 contiguous states (see map). Plus I drove my EV to 29 NPS affiliates, 60 heritage areas, and 24 national trails (not on map). Read about my favorite sites below.

Screenshot of my NPS unit Visitation Map from the National Park Travelers Club website.

‘Best’ is subjective, as it depends so much on your individual taste and experience. If you are lucky enough to have great weather, a lucky wildlife sighting, or an inspiring ranger-led tour, that day will be one of your favorites. Click on the links to read my past favorites from 100, 200, and 300 park units visited, and here are favorites from 400 park sites, including affiliates, heritage areas and trails. I have no changes to my previous favorite park units, but I have a few additions.

Best Civil Rights Affiliate: Robert Russa Moton Museum.

Best Flightseeing Tour: Dry Tortugas.

Best Garden: International Peace Garden.

Best Handshake: Red Hill.

Best National Heritage Area: Muscle Shoals.

Best Paddling Tour: Channel Islands.

Best Partner Site: Acadian Village.

Best Revolutionary War Affiliate: Camden.

Most Demolished Since My Tour: White House.

Most Hauntingly Evocative Past: Cumberland Island.

Most Irrevocably Damaged by Climate Change: Biscayne.

Southwest Nova

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Much of southern Nova Scotia belongs to this UNESCO Biosphere, and the at the center is Kejimkujik Lake, historic site and national park above. My cousin was instrumental in gaining early recognition for the area’s exceptional starlight and dark skies, making it a great place to stargaze. The visitor center has a couple beautiful birchbark canoes and exhibits on the First Nation people who have lived in the area since time immemorial.

Due to extreme fire conditions, the backcountry was closed during my visit, but a few lakeside trails were open. The lake was low, the air and forest dry, but the day was lovely and quiet. The climate change is even more visible to the north, and there were many fires burning in Newfoundland in September. The national park includes a seaside section on the southeast coast with nesting piping plovers on a (closed) beach from April to September, but the biosphere covers far more land, outside the core park, from Yarmouth to both southwest and southeast Nova Scotia.

Here are my visits to all UN sites in the Maritimes.

Climate & Instinctuality

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I write this on the Sea of Cortez, where sparrows chirp in the palms, brown pelicans splash down to catch their lunch, a whale takes a quick breath before diving down again, and a sign on the beach warns me not to step on stingrays. Most of the time, we live and work in air conditioned buildings, watch fiction on screen, and eat processed foods produced by big agricultural conglomerates. Nature often seems distant, filtered and controlled, which suppresses our natural affinity with other living creatures. Here, I am surrounded by many different forms of life, filling my senses, each living free. Looking out over the ocean is calming, and the smell of salt in the air reminds me that our roots are in the ocean; it’s in our blood. When we are in nature, we feel more connected with all living things that eat, breathe and cheat death, like we do.

But our selfish thoughtlessness now risks mass extinctions, as we unbalance the living world oblivious to the damage done by our pollution. Anger is what I feel most when contemplating the climate crisis, but also despair. People refusing to change, repeating lies, smugly imagining themselves smarter than scientists. Despair about the coming diseases, droughts, mass extinctions, famines, floods, heatwaves, refugees, storms and wildfires. Do we not fear death, like those trapped in their attics during Katrina or engulfed in Lahaina on Maui? Have we lost our survival instinct?

I’ve already seen huge wilderness forests, in areas largely untouched by man, burned over 95% in wildfires 100 or 1000 times larger than normal. I’ve stumbled on the moraine where glaciers once clung to mountaintops. I’ve swum along dead coral reefs that were brimming with fish when I was a teenager. In Mexico last year I heard about the decline in monarch butterflies in their winter refuge after migrating from all across North America. This year I heard about the decline in gray whales, breeding less due to less food, as our carbon pollution is rapidly changing the ocean’s temperature, acidity and salinity, poisoning the lifeblood of the smallest and simplest organisms upon which larger ones rely to survive.

We are betraying our evolution. I feel shock, despair and anger that my fellow humans knew and mostly refused to act. Pain of loss is what I feel when I know that future generations will never again experience the bounty of life we once had, to learn from or appreciate the living natural beauty we could have enjoyed, but recklessly gave up, unwilling to change our behavior.

Next week, I’ll wrap up this trip to Baja, and then we need to work on thinking rationally.