Courtesy of rkramer62 @flickr. Creative Commons.

Has anyone else heard Canada Geese overhead in the last few days? I have, at our apartment in Somerville, MA. It’s a delightful sound, of course, but it’s the middle of January! This is the time for dead-of-winter slumber and the deep freezes that keep New England’s natural communities healthy and continuing as they are. Geese overhead in January is not a good sign.

Gardening companies and plant nurseries know the calendar. Seed catalogs are arriving, right on time. New England growers envision their gardens, select varieties of vegetables and fruits and, with the bounce of hope and excitement that this brings to a gardener, place their orders.

But what will this growing season bring? Very possibly too much rain (if recent experience continues), pests we’re not used to because they won’t be killed by deep frost over a warmer-than-usual winter, or other alterations to the web of life that has evolved in our region over the past thousands of years.

In 1990, the USDA plant hardiness zones in New England ranged from the subarctic zone 3 across the northern tier to temperate zone 6 across much of southern New England. As of 2006, zone 3 had shrunk to barely a sliver, and zone 7 appeared in the south – the same zone as Northern Louisiana. And that was 6 years ago. What is it now? What will it be in 10 years? I highly recommend arborday.org, where you can watch a brief animation of the shift (click “play” and “reset”).

The big idea in Bill McKibben’s recent book, Eaarth, is that our planet has already changed – it’s not the same as the one we used to know. Growers in New England know this because they pay attention to it. In the coming years and decades, we’ll all see it. It will be unavoidable.

This change will help us focus our work at CLF. It must. Successfully adapting to a fundamental shift in climate – in a way that is affordable, promotes healthy communities, and promotes a resilient natural world – is vital for New England to thrive. What exactly that will require is not yet clear – to anyone. The strategic priority-setting process we have now embarked upon at CLF will set us on course to figure that out – continually, over time. It will require us to be as resilient as our natural world needs to be.

I believe we will keep ourselves on that course, in part because the reminders of the importance of doing so are obvious – like increased flooding and shrinking winters. And geese overhead in January.

In the mid-1990’s a Vermont ski area executive told me this joke.

“How do you make a small fortune in the ski industry in New England?” he asked.

“Start with a large one.”

He was talking about the challenges he faced then, which seemed normal at the time:  limited water for snowmaking, labor shortages, skyrocketing costs of doing business, aging baby boomer population, and inconsistent (though generally reliable) snowfall. The snow sports industry now faces a much more fundamental challenge: a shrinking winter.

But for a recent cold snap, a light dusting on MLK day, and a destructive storm in October, our winter here in New England has been largely without snow. The temperature has been high – in many instances, far higher than normal.

Consider recent temperature trends as reported by @JustinNOAA – the Twitter feed by NOAA’s Communications Director. On Friday, December 9^th, he Tweeted: “NOAA: 971 hi-temp records broken (744) or tied (227) so far this January.” The day before broke “336 hi-temp records in 21 states.”

Rising temperatures are a death knell for falling snow. On the final day of 2011, only 22% of the lower 48 had snow. Today, New England remains largely untouched by snow. A glance at NOAA’s snow depth map shows most of New England with 4 or less inches of snow. This was true of my New Year’s hike with my brother and his dog up Camel’s Hump. As the background of the photo shows, there was little snow across the surrounding Green Mountains.

With so little snow, New England is suffering. While ski mountains have been making snow (and areas like Sugarloaf and Stowe are reporting recent snow fall), other outdoor recreationists are suffering. Some seasons haven’t even started yet, weeks if not months into their normal season.

Snowmobilers, for instance, are facing one hell of a tough time. With so little snow in most of New England, they’ve been prevented from riding over familiar terrain. Ice fishermen, too, are facing lakes and ponds that, by this time of year are usually covered in a thick layer of ice by mid December. Today, many that are usually frozen by now remain open bodies of water.

The effects of this extends beyond our enjoyment to our economy. According to a story on NPR, reported by Maine Public Broadcasting, the unseasonably warm winter has meant millions of dollars in lost revenue for sporting good stores, lodging, and recreation. One store in the story has reported a decline in sales by around 50%.

Competitive cross-country and downhill skiers suffered, too. They’ve have had their race schedule reshuffled due to rain last week. According to the US Ski Team development coach Bryan Fish, quoted in the Boston Globe, “We’ve had the same challenges on the World Cup. It is always a challenge in a sport that relies on the climate.”

That is precisely the problem. People are drawn to New England to live, work and play for its climate: its warm summers, stunning falls and picture perfect winter landscapes, suitable for a wide range of outdoor activities. Walk down the halls of our states offices and you’ll see signs of that passion right here at home: people wearing ski vests, pictures of people snow shoeing, cabins nestled into densely fallen snow. If our climate changes – which the IPCC and others have repeatedly demonstrated it will – then New England will be a very different region than the one we all have come to know and to love.

That’s why I ask you to help us protect our New England winters. Help us protect the places where we enjoy ourselves.

To do just that, I suggest a few things:

1)      Help us transition away from inefficient, 20^th century energy to clean energy of the 21^st century. As a recent EPA report showed, power plants account for 72% of greenhouse gases – by far the largest contributor to global warming in the U.S. Here at CLF, we’re pushing for a coal free New England by 2020.

2)      Also according to the EPA, transportation accounts for the second largest portion of greenhouse gasses. Ride your bike, walk, or take public transportation to work, to do your errands or your other daily tasks. It makes a big difference.

3)      Support both national and regional or local environmental organizations. As I wrote in a NY Times letter to the editor recently, local environmental organizations “have known for years what the nationals are only now realizing: we’ve got to engage people closer to where they live.” Support local, effective environmental organizations who are creating lasting solutions in your area.

4)      Make yourself heard; write letters to your Senators, Congressmen and Representatives. Ask tough questions, and don’t settle for easy answers.

5)      And be sure to get outside. Plant a garden, even if it’s a small one in a city. Go for a hike, or for a bike ride. And take a friend or family member. Remind yourself and others why we need to protect our environment.

By doing all of these simple but important things, you can help us keep winter, winter.

MBTA General Manager Richard Davey likes to say “We’re only as good as our last rush hour,’’ and by that standard the T is not doing very well right now. The long delays throughout system on a recent frigid day have enraged commuters and discouraged new riders from getting onboard, as Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz wrote in an article published in yesterday’s paper.

The T, to its credit, did not pretend it was surprised it gets cold in Boston in January. When it discusses the T’s “aging fleet” the Globe hints at the real reason for these delays:  a long list of necessary repairs to its system that the T estimates will cost at least $2.7 billion to address.  Despite the ingenuity of MBTA’s employees to keep the system running, the only way we can ensure that the T runs smoothly in the future is to raise sufficient revenue to pay for much delayed improvements.  While few in government right now want to talk about raising revenue, investment in public transportation infrastructure, not just for the MBTA, but throughout the state, is critical for encouraging economic development, slashing the greenhouse gas pollution changing our climate, improving air quality, and providing affordable and efficient transportation for everyone.

Less than a week after I posted my blog post about the environmental and health problems associated with road salt, the Boston Globe published an article about de-icing alternatives some Massachusetts communities are turning to. Boston has received almost 50 inches of snow this winter compared to a total of 17 inches on average around this time. We can only assume that it means we’re using record amounts of salt to combat all this snow. While it is difficult to say if the increased snowfall we’re seeing is directly related to climate change, increased temperatures tend to increase evaporation thus resulting in increased precipitation.  (In the Northeast, there has been a 5 to 10% increase in annual average precipitation since 1900.) More generally speaking, scientists are increasingly concerned about the link between global warming and anomalous winter weather (such as the bizarre snowstorms seen recently in the South). As such, it is encouraging to hear that towns are looking to more environmentally friendly alternatives to deal with our new weather conditions as the planet continues to warm.

Besides rock salt (sodium chloride), calcium chloride and magnesium chloride can be used in colder temperatures but unfortunately, they are significantly more expensive than the traditional rock salt. Instead a growing number of Massachusetts communities are returning to an age-old solution: brine. The mixture is a combination of rock salt and water. Applying brine before snow falls and ice forms on the roadway (known as “anti-icing”) can prevent snow and ice from sticking to roads. Unlike plain old rock salt, this stuff doesn’t bounce or get blown off the roads like we’ve all seen. As such it dramatically reduces the amount of salt used and the time it takes to remove snow and ice from the roads in turn saving towns money. A study done in Oregon and Washington state showed that anti-icing can decrease costs by more than 50% compared to conventional de-icing. And it reduces the amount of salt that gets into our drinking water and the negative impacts on the environment.

This yet again reinforces the idea that solutions that are good for the environment are often also good for people and the economy.