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Nature showing us she’s not happy

Humans have found ways to defeat the work of the chloroplast mini-factories
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Nature showing us she’s not happy

Municipality of North Cowichan is in a micro-climate, next to a meta climate that exists on the east coast of Vancouver Island. The meta climate stretches from about Qualicum to Goldstream, and beyond to the south. It is the second warmest and the second driest area in all of Canada! Mt. Tzouhalem puts Khenipsen Road in a rain shadow, which quite possibly could be the driest area in all of Canada.

Our sun lashes Earth with short rays, similar to radio waves, at a rate of 126 trillion horsepower every second. Fortunately, Earth’s atmosphere reflects away 57 per cent of that. Snow, ice, dry sand reflect away more rays, leaving about 25 per cent to change to long wave heat, and night time radiation into space balances things out. Or it did, until the Industrial Revolution. CO2 in the atmosphere (forget the “greenhouse” concept) protects us from losing all our heat. There is, normally, only 0.04 per cent of CO2 in our atmosphere. Much less than I had ever imagined, but enough to keep heat loss in balance.

Photosynthesis (yes, those tiny CO2 conversion factories), along with every other plant or water containing chloroplasts, kept the 0.04 per cent of CO2 in check. But now humans have found ways to defeat the work of the chloroplast mini-factories and the clouds and trees and the wind of Mother Nature are letting us know that meddling with our weather is upsettting her greatly!

When our Earth’s atmosphere’s temperature rises 2 C, it is predicted that the polar ice caps will melt the same as sea ice is doing now. The Antarctic ice cap is 30 miles thick, alone. The recent windstorm broke off about a ton of green, growing evergreen branch tips, on my one acre of about 70 evergreen trees. It appears that Ma Nature can do her own pruning and doesn’t need loggers to help her.

George Croy

Duncan