Man changed climate three times

 

The mid-20th century was the golden age of the sprinkler in cities and suburbs around the world.

           Mankind changed the climate and ecosystems of North America and much of the world for the worse by killing beaver and many other creatures over three hundred years.  Bounties were put on wolves and big cats to save cows and sheep for ranchers and deer for human hunters, until deer overpopulated our wild lands and ate the vegetation as high as they could reach, standing on their hind legs.  And then they starved.*

But in the Twentieth century, we slowly changed the climate of the whole world for the better, making it moister and more moderate, by increasingly irrigating with sprinklers after we started building water treatment plants.  These were followed by sewage treatment plants to keep our rivers and lakes cleaner and reduce diseases.

          We began to take on the role of beavers in watering the land and moderating weather, even as we cut trees, dredged and straightened rivers, and put bounties on predators and beavers.  We watered our cities to keep us safe from fire, with sprinklers that threw water in the air and all over plants and ground.  This evaporated millions of gallons of water per day in Grants Pass in summer, when it was most needed, making clouds and rain.  Water also transpired through the plants we grew and added to the humidity and rainfall. 

Watering deep enough to keep lawns and gardens healthy percolated water into aquifers, along with rainfall, that fed wells for those out of reach of city water pipes, irrigating farms and rural residences.  Leaky irrigation ditches fed wells, too.

We didn’t know what we were doing to our climate.  Like beavers, we were just making our habitat safe and more productive for us.  We didn’t even think about how much our watering benefited other people and creatures who lived near us and far away, as its vapor spread out, made rain, which evaporated and blew on the prevailing wind over mountains, to join vapor generated on the other side, adding to rain there as well, rolling East, city by city and every farm between.

The eighties were considered a wet decade.  It was the height of sprinkler irrigation. Nineteen eighty-six was the first year we heard two nonscientific, nonsensical themes all over the media: burning fossil fuels is causing global warming from too much carbon dioxide; and fresh water is a scarce and precious resource that we must conserve.  Worldwide, we eventually bought this nonsense, which has had serious consequences.

 

*A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, from memory.

Speech to the Josephine County Commissioners and the Grants Pass City Council, 9-15-2021

 published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener    541-955-9040   rycke@gardener.com

Beavers changed the climate first

 

            Mankind changed the climate of North America three times, twice for the worse.  But beaver changed the climate of the Northern hemisphere before man existed, for the better.

            Beaver evolved from a digging rodent in the flat plains of Nebraska, where spring flooding was common.  They built corkscrew-shaped burrows with a rise at the bottom, which trapped air even when all was water above them.  At some point, they started building dams to keep their habitat safely flooded; to grow trees and water plants for food; and to build lodges in the middle of their ponds.  They spread across the Northern Hemisphere.

When Europeans found North America, they found beaver everywhere.  Their dams, ponds and swamps blocked every stream and most river valleys East of the Mississippi.   West of the Mississippi, they provided water for Plains Indians, their horses, and the buffalo they hunted.  They held running water on and in the land by slowing it down and soaking it in, keeping water tables high.  The trees and plants they grew pumped massive amounts of water vapor into the air, making rain.  The land was full of water and a wealth of trees and wildlife.

The wealth that most excited Europeans was the beaver themselves.  They had about run out of beaver in Europe after they figured out how to make felt from beaver fur, for hats. 

European fur traders bought beaver furs and land from the Eastern and Canadian Indians with blankets, beads, and metal tools and cookware.  As beaver became scarce from the East, it opened the land for European travel and settlement, draining ponds and swamps as beaver dams failed for lack of maintenance, leaving open rivers and flat, rich meadows for farming, travel, and industry. 

West of the Mississippi, Plains Indians would not kill beaver, as they revered them for holding water in their dry land.  So American and British Mountain Men had to do the hard work of trapping and killing beaver and selling it to the traders.

This was an ecological disaster in the West, as dams collapsed and water ran to the sea unimpeded, digging streams into gullies and dropping water tables below the reach of the trees that had grown there.  Rich grasslands turned to desert. The climate became quite dry and hot and the land poor, the first time Man changed the climate in North America.

 

Source: Ben Goldfarb, Eager: the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter, 2018.

 

Speech to the Josephine County Commissioners and the Grants Pass City Council, 9-1-2021

 published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

Like Ratepayers for Fair Water and Sewer Pricing on Facebook

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener             541-955-9040             rycke@gardener.com