Letters to the Editor

About That Climate Crisis

Posted

In response to the guest column in the June edition, “Climate Change Comes Home,” here are a few interesting facts.

The Earth was formed roughly four billion years ago and has been changing in weather, tectonic plate movement, continental drift and overall climate variations ever since.

In A.D. 623, one of the worst climate disasters happened when an area around Krakatoa caldera in the Indonesian province of Lampung erupted. The eruption went on for years, disrupting weather in both hemispheres with diminished sunlight, colder temperatures and summer snow.

Krakatoa erupted again in 1883, killing 36,000 people.

In 1910, after four months of drought in the Pacific Northwest, a steam engine spark ignited what became known as “the Big Burn” outside of Wallace, Idaho. The U.S. Forest Service was formed by Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot to fight the Big Burn and all future forest fires. A hero emerged, Ed Pulaski, who saved a dozen of his fellow forester-firefighters, and lived to talk about it. (A great read is Timothy Egan’s “The Big Burn,” 2009).

The year 1996 brought huge floods to the Pacific Northwest due to warm temperatures and heavy rainfall. The tab was $800 million.

June of 2009 saw record temperatures of 100 degrees in Pierce and King counties. Not quite like last summer, but close.

The column authors are correct in their approach to community involvement, green spaces, education, local farming (organic), and most importantly, helping one another in a weather or other crisis.

But let us put into perspective that the United States has only been measuring climate since the early 1900s while Earth’s climate disasters and changes have been happening for millions of years. The ebb and flow of the Earth and its peaks and valleys of changing climate will be with us forever.

Victoria Nelsen, Lakebay


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