The call of the wild. September 20, 2012
Posted by ourfriendben in critters, wit and wisdom.Tags: climate change, fall, geese, global warming, goose migration
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Our friend Ben always knows that fall has truly arrived, whatever the calendar says, when I hear the geese calling overhead as they head South. I was sitting at the computer this morning and heard the cries, the most primitive, the most rousing sound I know. The geese are here! The geese are passing overhead!
We seem to be living in such bizarre climatic times. After an unbearably hot spring and summer, it’s really cold here in my part of scenic PA, even though it’s just September. Yet the great Arctic ice caps are melting at unprecedented rates and Greenland’s ice is breaking up. Drought has ravaged most of our country this year; I read just yesterday that India will be facing a desperate water shortage in the near future. The oceans are warming and rising, threatening to swamp our coasts and turn us into the Panem of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games.
The sound of the geese so early in the year makes me wonder what lies ahead for us this winter. And what, if anything, we can do about it.
Mother Earth at her best, being normal and unpredictable.
Being scary, I’d say, William! Better stock up on wood for the winter!