President Trump has proclaimed that climate change is
a Chinese hoax. The newly confirmed
director of the E.P.A., Scott Pruitt, is a climate change skeptic and has begun
to stack the E.PA. with fellow skeptics. Nevertheless, facts on the ground don’t
change when an administration changes. 2014 was the warmest year on record
until 2015 broke it. 2016 broke 2015’s
record and it looks like 2017 will the hottest year on record. The overwhelming majority of scientist
disagree with climate change skeptics. A survey found 97% of scientist agreed that global
temperatures have increased during the past 100 years; 84% say they personally
believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that "currently
available scientific evidence" substantiates its occurrence
Climate change is also impacting us here in Queens. Last
October Marathon JCC planted 360 daffodil bulbs around our Holocaust Memorial
Garden. Those yellow were supposed to
bloom by Yom Hashoa to remind us of the yellow badges the Germans made the Jews
wear. As I write this blog, Purim is still 5 days away and the green shoots
have broken through the soil and are 3 inches tall. The weather has been
crazy. The temps have reached the 60s
and even once in the low 70s and has dropped as low as 19 degrees. Snow has been forecasted for this Friday. I
worried that the cold weather would kill our flowers. We learned though our bulbs will be all right
as long as they don’t flower.
I’ve been thinking how will climate change causing earlier
and earlier springs effect Passover? As you well know that Passover is the
holiday of spring time. On the seder plate, we place parsley or some other
greens to symbolize spring. Did you know
that there is a special one-time-a-year blessing recited in the month of Nisan? When we see buds flowering for the first time
in the spring, we recite: “Praised are You, Lord our God, King of the universe
who has withheld nothing from his world, and has created in it beautiful
creatures and trees for human beings to enjoy.” (See page 223 in the Weekday
Siddur Sim Shalom) Erica Brown in her Haggada, Seder Talk: The Conversational
Haggada writes: “The season of spring
reminds us that just as nature renews itself, so does humanity.”
I’m worried with
climate change nature may not be able to renew itself. The study, published in Environmental Research Letters,
looked at the onset of spring and the flower blooms and leaf bursts that come
along with it. springs will arrive on average 23 days earlier in the U.S.by
2100.
“Our projections show that winter will
be shorter — which sounds great for those of us in Wisconsin” lead author
Andrew Allstadt said. “But long distance migratory birds, for example, time
their migration based on day length in their winter range. They may arrive in
their breeding ground to find that the plant resources that they require are
already gone.”
Any increase in false springs is bad
news for the environment and for some businesses, the researchers note.
“Sub-freezing temperatures after
spring onset can damage vulnerable plant tissue, and reproductive growth stages
later in spring typically make plants more susceptible to damage from cold,”
the researchers write. “Damage due to false springs is often observed in
natural systems, and lost plant productivity can negatively impact dependent
animal populations. False springs can also strongly affect agricultural
systems. For example, the false spring of 2012 caused $500 million in damages
to fruit and vegetables in Michigan.[1]
There could also be miss-matched
timing between bees and other pollinators and flowers disrupting pollination
which are food supplies depend upon.
The conclusion is clear. If we want to
celebrate Passover as our holiday of springtime, we need to take care of our
environment. Not only does our renewal depend upon it, our very lives are at
stake
[1] https://thinkprogress.org/climate-change-will-have-big-effects-on-spring-and-winter-b52148172817#.ezyeb7odu
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