By Loretta Williams
In January, Judy Donnelly noticed that maple syrup collection was starting much earlier than usual near her Connecticut home. "I've noticed tubing being strung to collect maple sap in neighboring towns," she wrote. "This doesn't usually happen until mid-February."
Like others who post observations to iSeeChange.org, Donnelly is aware of changes in the weather and climate in her area. "I've lived in eastern Connecticut for 40 years and have noticed changes in the blooming time for plants; for example dogwoods are blooming about two weeks earlier than they did in the late 70's. My daughter mentioned the website to me and I thought it was a good way to track what I see."
NASA
Seeing the bigger picture of climate change in the details of daily life is why Julia Kumari Drapkin started iSeeChange as a public media project in 2012. Drapkin had recently moved from Washington, DC, where she was a science reporter, to work at the local radio station in the tiny rural community of Paonia, Colorado. She realized that journalists were coming at climate change reporting all wrong. If the public was to ever get engaged on the subject, someone should be listening—not just to scientists—but to regular people who had valuable knowledge and experience of how their local weather patterns might be changing.
Hotchkiss Fire Protection District takes on a run-of-the-mill uncontrolled control burn in April.
She started by asking farmers, ranchers and gardeners to send her their questions about weather and climate. And it was a weird year for both: the U.S. experienced its earliest spring ever and the front range of Colorado was hit hard by drought. People sold their cattle because there wasn't enough hay to feed them. Wildfires broke out so early that the local fire teams were putting them out in the snow.
Citizens would send in their questions and Drapkin would find scientists to answer them on the air. "Sometimes the answer wasn't what anyone wanted to hear," said Drapkin. "Climate change is a touchy subject for many people, especially in communities like the North Fork Valley of Colorado that depend on both ranching and coal mining." The key was to find a balance between what people noticed and a useful explanation of what was going on with the weather." Not every weird weather event is connected to climate change, Drapkin noted, "but every change sighting helps us create a baseline for knowing when there is something significant. The goal has always been to give scientific context to people's questions and add to their own knowledge of the area."
Current and projected maple tree distribution according to U.S. Department of Agriculture maps.USDA Climate Change Atlas / Range Maps for Acer Saccharum
As the questions rolled in, Drapkin hit upon the idea of an online community almanac to keep track of what was happening, especially as people started bringing out their own journals, noting weather conditions going back decades.
"People are experts in their own backyards," said Drapkin. "I started to see that it was possible to investigate climate and weather issues on a bigger scale if all these individual observations could be gathered in one place."
This is the kind of insight that comes from looking for changes in the environment. We learn that what we see one day can resonate months, even years, later. Now researchers are studying the timing of sap rise, to determine whether maple trees will eventually only be able to thrive in higher latitudes.
So the next time you pour maple syrup on your pancakes, think about this: Did your pay more for that bottle of syrup this year? When you lift the fork to your mouth, ask yourself: was it a good year or a bad year for those who make their living tapping trees?
We don't yet know what our changing climate might do to sugar maples and many other things that are part of our daily lives, but we can all keep an eye out for change.
Loretta Williams is an award-winning public media producer (NPR, Marketplace, SoundVision Production) working on stories that range from wildlife conflict to cochlear implants to the mysteries and promise of genetic science. Her most recent work can be seen at ISeeChange.org a climate change journalism project that connects citizen observations to science driven data.
This post was produced as part of the Island Press Urban Resilience Project, with support from The Kresge Foundation and The JPB Foundation.