On the Church of Global Warming

One of my anonymous commentors is accusing me of being a zealot again.

I grew up reading those marvelous Golden Nature Guides. I still have a few of them- books are a passion of mine, just as nature is. One of my favorites was simply entitled "Trees," by Herbert Zim and Alexander Martin.

It had lovely detailed paintings of trees, decribing their growth, leaves, and flowers. Each specimen also had a map of North America, showing its natural range, and where you could cultivate it outside of its natural range.

For example, the River Birch, a tree Zim showed as a Southern native to the lower Mississippi Valley, riparian, heat and drought resistant, requiring the direct sun.

That was 45 years ago.

The city of Ann Arbor is planting them all over here in Michigan to replace the Ash destroyed by the emerald borer. They're doing fine.

Or there's the Bald Cypress. The original range was along the Gulf of Mexico, along the Delta country. By Dr. Zim's time, they had expanded outside their range as far north as Tennessee.

I know of three 20 year old specimens here in Ann Arbor. In Livonia, the Parks commission plants them along drain ditches- lovely, sturdy trees, long-lived, tough enough for the long wet Michigan winters and the recent hot Michigan summers.

It's a good thing, too, as they're having a harder time of it in the Delta country these days: tropical rot, tropical rodents and insects are taking their toll on thousand year old trees. But we still have winter in Michigan. Bald cypress does well.

Metasequoia, are doing nicely here, too, a Chinese semitropical relative of the Bald Cypress and the Coastal Redwood. Although the native pine species are having a hard go of it lately. Acid rain, temperate invasive pests.

One of the nice things about having a scientific background is that I understand the facts. I understand what the yearly increase in PCO₂ does. I don't have to take it on Faith.

I'm a scientist. The Conservation of Matter and Energy, Gravity, Evolution, none of these are things I take on Faith. I observe them invariant, daily, in the world around me.

Just like global warming.