View from a Prairie Home

By Hege Herfindahl, Columnist

My daughter, Ingvild, lived in Gainesville, Fla., for five years while her husband, Patrick, went to graduate school there. It was traumatic for me to have her so far away and I spent every single extra penny and vacation day to fly down to see her. In retrospect, it was nice to have a place in Florida, but I would not trade that for having her back in Minnesota. 

When her Florida friends asked her why she would move back to land of ice and snow, she told them that, besides missing her family, she missed the seasons, especially the fall. I think most Minnesotans love the fall. They might hate what comes later, but they love the cool, but crystal clear air of fall, the lack of mosquitoes and especially the colors of fall. 

Being a nature-loving girl, I also adore fall, but I don’t share the hatred of winter. I love all seasons here, but I must admit that the early snowfall with the accompanying cold made me wish fall could have lasted a little longer. It is hard to fathom that the climate is becoming warmer at an alarming rate when we have sub-zero wind chills in the middle of November. But the scientist and meteorologists all agree that there is a big difference between weather and climate. Whereas weather is short term, climate is the weather of a specific region averaged over a long period of time. In other words, weather is what happens now, but climate is the trend. And the trend of climate all over the world is that the weather is becoming warmer. 

Climate change, all experts agree, is caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. These fossil fuels, when burnt, cause carbon dioxide to be released into the air. The carbon dioxide in the air is what causes the planet to heat up. We are already seeing the effects of climate change. The melting of the polar ice caps causes the sea levels to rise. It also causes extreme weather events like more floods from downpours, drought, hurricanes and tornadoes. 

One of my favorite newspapers, Aftenposten, has had stories written by a climatologist about what could happen to the future of the climate around Oslo, which is located on a latitude of 59 degrees north. What makes these stories so compelling is that the journalist has personalized his articles with likely scenarios depicted in drawings which incorporates his young son as he ages along with the changing climate. According to these scenarios by the time his son is 80, there will be climate refugees from southern Europe in Norway. Unlike now, when Norwegians travel to Italy and France for reliably  warm summer weather, in less than 70 years the French and Italians will travel to Norway to escape summers with dangerous heat. 

The sad thing is that he will be right if we don’t act quickly. And it is even sadder to think that climate change is something that not all people believe in. I think that is largely because we listen to different news sources, which I find disturbing. It seems like at this time of easy access to the web, anybody can claim anything and get followers who believe them. 

Climate change is not a religion that we can believe in or not. It is a fact agreed upon by all scientists in the world. Already we have climate migrants who flee from rising sea levels, wildfires caused by drought or no water. The time to act is now, to try to limit our own carbon footprints. We can all recycle. We can all try to limit how much we use our cars. Or how hot or cold we keep our houses. We are basically all kind. We all want the best future for our grandchildren. Let’s work together to help God’s beautiful world!