Global warming comes home

I'm 62 years old and I've lived in the Coeur d'Alene area for the past 28 years. Growing up, with my parents and brother and sister, I spent every summer until I graduated from high school visiting my grandparents here in Coeur d'Alene. They were the best times of my life.

We swam in the lake all day, scurrying on the hot sidewalk, back and forth from grandma and grandpa's house in the Fort Grounds. I tried to sneak cookies out of the cookie jar before dinner but grandma always heard me! We ate lunch with grandpa at what is now Hudson's Hamburgers and "helped" him at his feed store on Fourth Street. My brother and I taught ourselves how to play tennis on the one court near the Fort Sherman church.

I treasured those times with grandma and grandpa, and I loved everything about Coeur d'Alene. I still do.

At that time I had no idea what "allowed" for Coeur d'Alene to have a wonderful lake to swim in, so many tall trees that lined the streets or nice, cool nights which made sleeping so comfortable. If I ever heard of the word climate it would've gone in one ear and out the other.

I've since come to understand that our stable climate is what "allowed" for what we love about living here.

For generations, bountiful snow in the winter and cool nights in the summer have helped to define our climate. Ample snow greened our trees and fed our streams and fish. Cool summer nights beckoned us outdoors, birthed our outdoors lifestyle.

Now, however, our foundation is changing. Increasingly, we see our winter snow being replaced by rain. "What," we implore, "is this? Rain and flooding, in the winter? What's going on?" We may not like driving in it, or snow blowing or shoveling it, but the beauty and majesty of snow is something we have counted on for generations. After all, we can't shovel rain or build snowmen out of it. And a wet Christmas is no substitute for a white Christmas.

But this is not merely about nostalgia lost. We depend on snow for our water. Without ample winter snow not only is the ski business impacted but our streams run lower in the summer, causing a cascading effect on electricity generation from dams, on irrigation, on our hunting, fishing, swimming and hiking. Without our historical levels of snow, soils lose water and trees become parched, left vulnerable to infestation and die, and wildfires get worse. Electricity costs rise, cold-water fish disappear. Our lifestyles and economic systems are disrupted.

What is turning our snow into winter rain, stealing our winters? Increasing heat.

Our summers are feeling it too: the gift of cool nights is being taken by warmer temperatures. In addition to 20 days this July and 13 in August that were over 90 degrees in Coeur d'Alene (5 were 100 degrees or more), 18 days in July and 12 in August had lows of at least 60 degrees, according to the National Weather Service at Felts Field in the Spokane Valley (readings in Coeur d'Alene are voluntary, with too many missed days to use). That is unprecedented. That heat, without our normal night respite, burdens us. We hope this past summer won't become the "new normal," but we fear, with reason, it might.

Burdened summers. Stolen winters. Who, or what, has taken our stable climate? Some people say God, others point to humans. Many of us are frightened, and in our fear we deny the facts that become more obvious each year. Humans have dramatically changed the composition of our atmosphere. There is no denying that. This change in the atmosphere has caused our climate to become unbalanced. Dumping 90 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, through the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) will do that. That CO2 forms a sort of blanket which holds the heat in.

Here and now, in our home, we feel the unmistakable loss and burden of global warming. What our parents bequeathed to us, passed down for generations - and what we love living here - we are destroying for our kids and their kids.

Here's the good news, though - what we are doing we can stop doing. Not overnight, certainly. Or easily. But personally, instead of adding to the profits of mammoth oil, coal and gas companies that care nothing about global warming, let alone our local climate, we can limit our own use of gasoline and natural gas.

We can buy products made in America, not China and India. Turn things off when they aren't being used. Dry clothes outside, use daylight for lighting, ride our bikes when we can. Recycle. Doing these things save us money, improves our health as well as our connection to Nature.

On a deeper and broader level, support candidates in the upcoming elections who know the truth about global warming (hopefully there are one or two) and therefore would push for the dramatic expansion of clean, renewable energy sources such as the sun, wind, geothermal and biomass. Plus, would champion energy efficiency initiatives.

Deeper still, developing a reverence for all of life can help us to develop a sacred relationship with the earth. That deepening of our connection to Nature and the outdoors, as well as each other, will help see us through the mess we are in. It will likely be a very bumpy ride for us, and for generations in the future, riding out what a changing climate will bring. Our love and faith will help us to preserve and protect what we hold most dear about this place we all call home.

Bill Irving is a Hayden resident.