Tag Archive for "Climate Change" - The Adirondack Almanack

Paul Smiths, NY – As part of their Fall Lecture Series, Paul Smith’s College VIC will host a presentation called, “Hotter Planet, Hotter Politics,” featuring Bill McKibben and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. on Saturday, November 11 from 3 to 4 p.m. The lecture series is sponsored by the Adirondack Council and is free to students from Paul Smith’s College and North Country Community College, a donation of $5 from others is requested.

Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice.

His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers.

Monday, September 18, 2023

APIPP to host Invasive Species in a Changing Climate webinar, Sept. 20

Keene Valley, NY- The Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program (APIPP) is hosting a free webinar on how climate change could make the Adirondacks more hospitable to invasive species. “Invasive Species in a Changing Climate” is scheduled for 10-11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 20. The webinar will begin with an overview of what makes a species invasive before diving into how longer summers and shorter, milder winters in the Adirondacks are likely to make the region more favorable to invasive species. The impact of climate change on managing invasive species and an overview of which invasive species tend to benefit the most from climate change will also be discussed.

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

El Niño in the Northeast

by Chloe Bennett

1 Comment

Although Earth recently experienced some of the hottest documented years, scientists say it was in a cooling period with the naturally occurring La Niña weather pattern. Now, an opposing El Niño could boost warming temperatures further.

What does that mean for the Northeast and the Adirondacks?

The probability of higher temperatures in the Adirondacks is increased during an El Niño, but that doesn’t mean the park can expect heat waves.

Normally, winds blowing east to west push warm surface waters toward Asia, but La Niña and its opposing El Niño disrupt that pattern for months or years. But external forces such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation can dominate the influence of an El Niño.

Monday, May 8, 2023

Paul Smith’s VIC to host May 11 discussion on how climate change, carbon sequestration impact forests

Paul Smiths, NY – The Paul Smith’s College Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC) will be hosting a free panel discussion on the impact of climate change and carbon sequestration in forests. The event will be on Thursday, May 11. The event is free and open to the public. The Adirondack Council’s Rewilding Advocate, John Davis, will lead a world-renowned panel of scientists on how the climate change crisis will impact carbon sequestration in forests, as well as the discussion between “young” and “old” forests and how each sequesters carbon.

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

27th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks set for May 18 and 19

Adirondack Research Consortium (ARC) will host the 27^th Annual Conference on the Adirondacks on May 18 and 19 at the Conference Center at Lake Placid in Lake Placid, NY. This year’s conference will focus on “Climate Change in the Adirondack/North Country Region Mitigation, Adaption, and Implications.”

Friday, March 17, 2023

Historian joins climate change assessment study

by Chloe Bennett

1 Comment

This week I have a story about an Adirondacker giving a hand to a statewide climate study.

Around 80 people in different parts of the state are working on a climate change assessment. This multi-year study is overseen by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Last summer, Long Lake Town Historian Hallie Bond joined the team. She’s researching how climate change will alter community culture, including historical societies and museums.

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Climate matters: Keeping track of a changing environment

by Chloe Bennett

15 Comments

It’s week three for me at the Explorer and I have a few things to share with all of you. On top of learning how to live in the Adirondacks – like equipping my car with proper tires – I’m learning about how Adirondackers are keeping track of their changing environment. One longtime resident showed me her gardening journals that date back to the 1970s and have weather notes, bloom dates, wildlife sightings and more. I drove over to Wilmington and flipped through a hardware store owner’s log of snowplow jobs dating back to 1987. His take? Snow is coming later in the Adirondacks. Read the story here.

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Follow that Quacking: Observing 75 Mallards and one Black Duck in Inlet

by Gary Lee

1 Comment

Things at Eight Acre Wood look about the same as they did last week, with only an inch of new snow to make the landscape white. That shows the critters who have been wandering around the yard. [Some of these include] several deer, a coyote, a fisher, a mink, an otter, a snowshoe hare, one turkey, several varieties of mice, a pine marten, a couple red squirrels, a flying squirrel, ravens, crows, and a Bald Eagle stopped by for a snack on the dam. Most of them also got caught on one of my trail cameras, as many of them are night travelers. In all my hikes, I thought I might even see a bear track, but I guess they are smarter than that. There is nothing for them to eat right now, so they better stay napping.

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Northern Forest Center to host Ensuring Climate Resilience webinar Jan. 17

The Northern Forest Center has announced the next webinar in their Building the New Forest Future series, Ensuring Climate Resilience, which will take place on the afternoon of Tuesday, January 17 from noon to 1:30 p.m. Expert panelists will examine what communities can do today to ready themselves for environmental changes. Registration is free, but is required in order to participate in the webinar.
About the webinar:

Every community faces different pressures when it comes to our uncertain climate future. From flooding and drought to an influx of climate migrants, we will hear about ways communities can plan and prepare to face these changes. We will hear from communities that have already done this preparation and organizations that are leading the way. Speakers to be announced.

Sunday, January 8, 2023

An Insatiable Hunger for Energy

by Richard Gast

31 Comments

By the Numbers – Homes and Businesses

We use energy in our homes every day; lots of energy. According to the United States Department of Energy, 40% of the energy consumed in the United States goes to powering our homes and commercial buildings.

We use energy to keep rooms at comfortable temperatures, to provide lighting, and to heat water. We also use energy to cook food and to power our phones, computers, games, and appliances.

By the Numbers – Transportation

Even though Americans account for just 4.23% of the global population, with nearly 291-million registered vehicles, the U.S.A. is home to almost a quarter of the world’s cars. American motorists drive more than 3-trillion miles annually, and the Federal Highway Administration expects that number to grow by 22%, by 2049.

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Will climate change threaten ‘forever wild’?

by Zachary Matson

2 Comments

Covering the Adirondacks beat, you hear two words surface in a lot of conversations: climate refugees.

The idea is simple enough. As temperatures warm and the effects of climate change increase drought and water shortages, threaten deadly summer heat and render some parts of the country (let alone world) unlivable, many people may be looking at the Adirondack Park region with new interest.

Water is abundant. High temperatures will remain bearable for the foreseeable future and access to nature is plentiful. While the term typically applies to people around the world who will be forced to leave their homes, it may also apply to city-dwellers looking to escape the concrete jungle in the heat of summer.

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Ask Curt Stager your climate change questions

by Melissa Hart

9 Comments

A new paper from Paul Smith’s College researchers raises the specter of an Adirondack Park without the winter weather that has long shaped the region’s culture and economy.

The end of winter?

by Zachary Matson

2 Comments

In a new paper on how climate change is impacting the Adirondacks, Paul Smith’s College researchers waited until their last paragraph to raise a term that has stayed with me: the demise of winter.

It’s practically an aside in the paper’s concluding discussion.

“Today’s annual crossing and re-crossing of the thermal threshold between solid and liquid water has profound effects on cultures and ecosystems alike, and the eventual loss of that transition – i.e. the demise of winter – could produce the greatest climate-driven changes in the region,” they wrote.

Friday, June 3, 2022

Trees for a Changing Climate

by Paul Hetzler

14 Comments

My ex-wife gave me a shirt that reads “Change is Good. You Go First” when our divorce was finalised, a much-appreciated bit of humour in the midst of a challenging time. It’s hard to find the mirth in some changes, especially when we don’t have a say in them. Climate change is a good example.

Global temperatures are rising at an ever-increasing rate. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe with time, and no amount of denial will make it go away. We have to learn to roll with this one. We can’t stop climate change tomorrow, but we can “trick” it by updating the kinds of trees we consider for home and community planting. A warmer world affects trees in a myriad ways: Record wet seasons like in 2013, 2017, and 2019 allow normally weak foliar pathogens to spread and flourish, becoming primary agents of mortality.

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Introducing “Climate Matters”

by Cayte Bosler

20 Comments

This mural was drawn by school children in the Andean Mountain community of Santiago De Okola. Photo by Cayte Bosler

Commemorating Earth Day

In 1970, famed anchor Walter Cronkite announced Earth Day for the first time on a CBS news special.

Tens of millions of people, mostly students, had taken to the streets across the country with a message for leadership — “act or die,” as Cronkite recounted to his audience. Air pollution from leaded gas emissions and inefficient vehicles reigned as the leading concern which united protesters and activists to rally for systematic change.