6/7/11 Yesterday there was an eerie silence in the grey air as I pulled into the grocery store parking lot.  People were hurrying to their cars to get home.  There were tornado warnings in Worcester, 45 minutes away and severe thunderstorm warnings for our area.  Later a tornado did strike west of us; the first in many years, killing four people. Mark & I had stood transfixed in the dark throughout the loudest lightening storm we’d ever experienced. It was exciting but eerie too.

If this is happening in 2011, what’s it going to be like in 2030?

Every once in a while, I read something that resonates with me deeply.  Such was the case with Bill McKibben’s latest book, Eaarth. In it, he shows that global warming is no longer a philosophical threat; it is a current reality. The planet is no longer the stable garden we’ve enjoyed for thousands of years.   It’s become a hostile planet.

Because warm air holds more water vapor, we”ll have more violent storms, greater droughts and floods. It means more crop failures, more damage to our homes and infrastructure.

Every centigrade increase in temperature means 6% more lightening and 45% more thunderheads, so more forest fires, as are now going on in Texas at an unprecedented rate, and more super cells.

More pests surviving the winters and killing off our forests, especially the all important evergreen forests of northern Canada.

There is a hopeful message in all of this, though.   The difficulty in growing crops will force us to return to a more local and organic way of life, and a greater reverence for nature.

And I feel how right he is; feel it to my core.