Global warming?
Don Coldsmith
Monday, December 11, 2006
WE’RE HEARING a lot about global warming in the past year. The cause has been mostly regarded as connected with the abuse by humans of fossil fuels, growing world population and pollution of earth’s atmosphere in several other ways. These are probably all true, along with a great many other causes that we don’t really understand.
Several times in history, ever since God created evolution, there have been massive changes in earth’s climate from time to time. Great civilizations have risen and fallen. In some cases, we know where and when — massive periods of volcanic activity, a meteor strike. Sometimes a change in the world’s animal population from disease, or wars may cause some changes.
I first became interested a few years ago while I was doing research for a book about Vikings in North America. It’s all pretty well documented. The Norsemen (and women) were quite active in North America about a thousand years ago. Then, they apparently stopped crossing the North Atlantic. The climate had changed. “Vinland” named for the grapes they found growing on what is now Newfoundland, became too cold to grow grapes, apparently rather suddenly. They stopped crossing the North Atlantic — too cold and dangerous. It was centuries later that SOUTHERN Europeans such as Columbus found their way across.
Old English woodcut pictures show England’s Thames River, frozen in winter, used as a highway, with heavy freight wagons on the ice. But the Thames has not frozen for the past several centuries in more recent times.
Our grandparents, when they settled in Kansas and Missouri, used sled runners on their farm wagons in winter. Every farm auction in the 1960s when we came to Emporia, included in the equipment from the barn, a sleigh and maybe sled runners to refit the farm wagon for winter use. How long has it been since we had a winter when we could have used a sleigh?
But, Mother Nature is treacherous. A few years ago, it started to snow at about Christmas in 1978. How nice, a bit of snow for Christmas. Wrong! We didn’t see the ground again until late March.
We had about 20 cows in our pasture, nine miles north of town. They had some pretty good winter forage and we had plenty of hay in the barn at home. I could take out a few bales in the pickup if there was enough snow to interfere with their foraging. They had water in two ponds. We were in pretty good shape for the winter.
Wrong! It would snow again, several inches, every few days. The cows had no forage at all, only what hay I could haul for them. About every three or four days it would snow again, usually several inches. Even with snow chains on the truck, it was too deep to drive without getting stuck on a back country road. Pretty dangerous, actually. Even with chains, I couldn’t reach the pasture except for the few hours after the county snow plow had opened the road. That was about every three days.
I would back the truck into the barn at home, overload it with hay bales to maximum capacity and wait. By agreement, strategically located neighbors would phone me when the snow plow passed their place. I would drop everything and follow the plow, unload, chop a hole in the ice on the pond for water for the cattle and head back to the barn to load hay, ready for the next chance.
It was a tough winter, but we didn’t lose a single animal that year. The snowdrifts on the county road were as deep as 10 or 12 feet in many places. I could see only forward and backward from the truck in MOST places. It was early spring before it was over and we haven’t had such a winter for nearly 30 years. What will THIS one be like? Can we tell by traditional signs, heavy acorn crops, the old Farmers’ Almanac, etc.? By how many nuts the squirrels are gathering?
But an Indian friend confided to me that his people have a method to foretell the coming winter. In about October, they climb to the top of the ridge behind their villages. They overlook a busy highway now, but there is a service area on the Interstate. There they can observe carefully how many snow tires and how much antifreeze the palefaces are buying for the coming winter.
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.