Global Warming

Global Warming

A huge curved tusk in the muck of a pond
a stone spear point and mastodon bones
dug up in suburbia:
bones and tools from ancient days
lie under our freeways
football stadiums and homes.

After Ice Age glaciers melted away
mammoths and mastodons browsed the land
pursued by humans with stone spears.
Surely the people gazed up at the North Star,
traveled, gathered, hunted, survived.
Their children laughed and played in
parkas, leggings, boots
their mothers sewed for them
with bone needles: in short,
survival gear.

Trout-teeming melt water from glaciers
gushed and gashed the land and
tranquil mastodons grazed
Michigan’s lush green landscape.

Our mitten holds memories
of ancient times.
If only stones could speak.

Sophia's Lost and Found: Poems of Above and Below may be found many places on the www: Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com and independent bookstores such as Schuler Books and Music

Sophia's Lost

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sophias-lost-and-found-barbara-spring/1018903022?fb_action_ids=10151010745266910&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=246965925417366

The Great Lakes are Stressed

• Aquatic habitat alterations: Changes to aquatic habitat from diverse causes, such as shoreline hardening and erosion control structures, port and marina development, and tributary dams
• Climate change: Changes to seasonal, average, and extreme temperature, precipitation, and ice cover
• Coastal development: Land-based human development near lake margins, such as residential and commercial development and industrial activities
• Fisheries management: Changes to Great Lakes ecosystems resulting from fishing pressure, stocking activities, and aquaculture
• Invasive species: Changes to Great Lakes ecosystems from invasive and nuisance species in abundances not previously seen
• Nonpoint source pollution: Nutrients, sediments, and waterborne contaminants transported from watersheds to the Great Lakes by streams and rivers and atmospheric deposition
• Toxic chemical pollution: Chemical pollutants from industrial and agricultural sources

Great Lakes Water Levels: 1985 and 2012

The Great Lakes water levels rise and fall. The photo is from 1985 when cottages were undermined by high water and waves on Lake Michigan. This year the lakes are the lowest they have been for 130 years and there is a lot of sand on the beach. Yet, it's never a good idea to build too close the water since the lakes are dynamic. They are always changing. Global warming may continue to cause lower water levels, but no one really knows. Read more about the Great Lakes and their changes in The Dynamic Great Lakes

Climate Change affects the Great Lakes as reported by the AP

Al Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign to awaken people to the climate change threat, said warmer temperatures could nullify much of the progress made in recent decades to heal the battered Great Lakes. Increasingly, severe storms made worse by greater volumes of water vapor in the atmosphere are causing wastewater treatment system overflows that dump raw sewage into the lakes, he said. That forces beach closures and promotes growth of algae blooms that create oxygen-deprived zones where fish can’t survive.

“We’re still acting as if it’s perfectly OK to use this thin-shelled atmosphere as an open sewer. It’s not
 Gore said. “We need to listen to the scientists. We need to use the tried and true method of using the best evidence, debating and discussing it, but not pretending that facts are not facts.”
Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign to awaken people to the climate change threat, said warmer temperatures could nullify much of the progress made in recent decades to heal the battered Great Lakes.
Increasingly, severe storms made worse by greater volumes of water vapor in the atmosphere are causing wastewater treatment system overflows that dump raw sewage into the lakes, he said. That forces beach closures and promotes growth of algae blooms that create oxygen-deprived zones where fish can’t survive.
After largely disappearing as phosphorus discharges into the lakes were reduced decades ago, the algae problem has returned and is worse than ever in some places, primarily on Lake Erie. Smelly clumps of algae are fouling beaches on Lakes Michigan and Huron.
Gore’s critics have accused him of making exaggerated claims about climate change and cashing in on his activism through investments in green technology. But leaders of the International Joint Commission said his comments about the Great Lakes were based on findings of scientists in the region.
“He’s quoting what the researchers are saying,” said Ted Yuzyk, the Canadian co-chairman of an IJC group that plans to release a report next spring on how climate change is affecting the lakes. Researchers have found that heavy storms promote algae growth not only through sewage overflows, but also by washing greater amounts of nutrient-rich soils into the lakes, Yuzyk said.
Lana Pollack, who was appointed by President Barack Obama as the U.S. chairwoman of the commission, said: “There’s absolutely no doubt the challenges we face are greater and more confounding because of climate change.”