Environmentl Change

Brian Haggerty gave a presentation on the changing climate and how phenology is the best tool for monitoring environmental changes from season to season and from year to year. He clarified that the warming trends that have been observed are twice as pronounced in the winter than in the summer, so the presumption that global warming will mean very hot summers is incorrect. For a long time scientists have been measuring the changes in phenology by the start of the flowering season, but, as Mr. Haggerty has shown, the onset of flowering is only one variable in a much larger process beginning with sprouting new growth and ending with the production of seeds. Also, Mr. Haggerty has demonstrated how plants within the same species can be acclimated to different elevations and will respond differently to environmental changes. Particularly, high elevation plants have a shorter time span between flowering and fruiting, meaning a change in environment can disproportionally effect high elevation plants over low elevation plants, offsetting the synchrony of flowering, and potentially disrupting the seasonal synchrony of pollinators.

            The key concept that I took away from this lecture is that all variables must be accounted for to understand the whole; everything is connected, and to judge a system on one component is nonsensical. Furthermore, the solution to fix environmental issues will not come as one large miracle solution, it will be a compilation of many small solutions that work together; small thinks like recycling and doing your part to live sustainably are can change the world.