A Fall of Two Weeks

Fall lasted for about two weeks in western Washington this year.

The summer weather of high temperatures and smoky air continued through October 20. By then, the land was bone dry and the vegetation ready to flame up like tinder. Coniferous trees had begun dying off due to a lack of water. As for the deciduous trees, unless their leaves had dried up or dropped because of the drought, they remained green far into October, giving few signs that the calendar had turned to fall.

On October 21, rain finally arrived. The temperatures slipped into the 50s, and the deciduous trees began to change into their autumn colors.

The fall feeling didn't last long though as temperatures declined abruptly. A November 2 storm even dropped snow at Lake Crescent (elevation 580 feet) near Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula less than three weeks after the October 16 record temperature of 87 hit Seattle. 

Such a sudden shift from summer to winter has left many areas without green grass. In a normal year, fall rains would push up green shoots to replenish the grasses that go dormant and turn brown in the dry months of July and August. This year, the rain came so late that much of the grass had barely started growing again before the cold temperatures arrived to discourage further growth. Consequently, many fields and prairies remain brown.

It was a short fall to say the least.

A Place and Its Moment

Wind turbines churn out renewable
energy near Grayland, Washington.

American journalist Mignon McLaughlin wrote, "The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next."

The state of Washington needs that courage now from its legislators and from its people. We stand on the edge of a transition from one moment to another, and that move asks us to take a major step.

During the past five years, Washington has seen major impacts of global warming but no legislative action to address it. Consequently, that half-decade did not contain the fondest moments for Washington's environmentalists. In November 2012, voters elected Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat who has highlighted global warming as a key issue. That same year, two Democrats switched allegiance and began caucusing with Republicans, putting the state senate in GOP control. Every year since then, with major droughts, die-offs in sea life, and record-breaking fire seasons taking place, Inslee has called for climate legislation only to have Republicans block it.

Election results from a single race on Tuesday made possible a new and brighter moment in Washington government. Democrat Manka Dhingra won election to the senate in a district previously represented by a Republican, returning control of the chamber to Democrats. That means, no obstacles remain to prevent Inslee's desired legislation. As long as Democrats have the courage to make it happen, we can finally address this urgent issue.

This is the moment the state has waited for, and we must make the most of it. Our beloved region desperately needs action on global warming, and that work has to start at home. No excuses, no procrastinating. Whether the legislation comes in the form of a cap-and-trade system like the one Inslee proposed three years ago or a carbon tax like the one voters placed on the ballot in 2016, this legislation needs to get done, and needs to be done well.

Our moment is here, Washington, and we must be courageous. Contact your legislators and the governor, and tell them to seize this opportunity for a healthier planet.

Farewell Tour

Recession of the Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier

When I came home to Washington state this summer, I said goodbye.

Early in the spring semester while working at the University of South Dakota, I started making plans for my summer in Washington. I wanted to go back to Olympic National Park and Mount St. Helens. Also, I wanted to visit Mount Rainier for the first time. That mountain had watched over so much of my life, but I had never been up to it.

Accompanied by my family, I was able to keep all my plans, and I had a great time doing it. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was losing old friends and the state where I grew up.

Global warming is tearing apart my home state this summer with drought and heat. Two weeks after I visited Olympic National Park, one of the wettest places in the world, a massive fire started there. Days before I visited Mount St. Helens, the state Department of Ecology declared that Washington's snowpack was at zero percent of normal levels. Sure enough, the only snow I saw on that trip was at the top of St. Helens and in the volcano's shaded crater. Then, days before I went to Mount Rainier, a news story ran about the mountain's disappearing Nisqually Glacier. I was sure to take pictures of the glacier and its recession on my trip because I wasn't sure how many more chances I'll get to see it.

I was glad about my choice to visit these icons of Washington this summer. Global warming is changing them, and I needed something of the way they were to keep as a last memory. That's what we must do when we say goodbye.

Rain, moderate temperatures, snow: The band has broken up in Washington, and in the words of singer Michelle Branch, "Goodbye to you. Goodbye to everything that I knew. You were the one I loved, the one thing I tried to hold onto."

The Party's Over

Global warming has turned out the lights on a family tradition, another sign the place I love more than any other has changed drastically.

For as long as I can remember, my family has hosted an Independence Day party, and for just as long, the party has ended with a fireworks display. Each year, the children in the family bring their fireworks and light them off after dark, a practice I once lived for and which I now supervise. We always save the biggest firework for last so that the family can howl at it in memory of my dog, a rare animal who loved the colorful explosions.

This year, the family will get together as usual, but we won't have any fireworks. With the entire state of Washington in drought and a record heat wave strangling the area for more than two weeks, we made the sad decision to eliminate fireworks from our party.

Losing the fireworks themselves isn't what makes me saddest--it's what the loss symbolizes: the break in a shared family experience and a major shift in Washington's climate. The lack of snowpack, which triggered the drought and which I blogged about last month, and the record temperatures relate to a Pacific Ocean that is two degrees warmer than normal, and the result is an early-July Washington I don't recognize. Everything is brown and withered--a sight more typical of August than this time of year.

When everyone leaves our party on Saturday without a climactic fireworks display, I won't recognize that either. The event brought people together just before they went their separate ways for the nearly six months until the holidays. Now, a simple goodbye will have to suffice.

Above all, to me, the canceled fireworks suggest that until we address global warming, we'll lose more than we celebrate.