CITIZENS’ CLIMATE EDUCATION: April Gets a Bad Rap!

With apologies to T.S. Eliot, April is not the cruelest month. We have made it through winter with urban fires and mudslides, but April offers promise and hope and even joy in its beauty.

In our yard, we are thrilled daily by the hundreds of poppies and blue-eyed grass and iris and ceanothus in bloom.

The birds and squirrels have begun stuffing themselves at our “bird” feeder in the pomegranate tree outside our kitchen window. My LA daughter says the loss of habitat in Los Angeles because of the fires is why we have so many extra beaks to feed this year. 

And now I am cautiously awaiting the blooming of our native milkweed and the arrival of the wonderful Western Monarch butterflies.

I know their numbers in the West are dwindling to their lowest mark in nearly three decades because of pesticides and diminishing habitat and the climate crisis (Monarchs suffer when the temperatures reach 100 degrees and our temperatures are inching upward).

But it is April, and surrounded by beauty, I refuse to fall prey to despair. The motto of our Citizens’ Climate Lobby/Education group is “action is the antidote to despair.” So, I will act by planting more native milkweed, not using pesticides, and encouraging our elected officials to mandate use of the Environmental Protection Agency’s research model, which measures pesticide effects on our bees and butterflies. 

One newspaper I have come to trust as billionaires control our news sources is The Guardian. It is a British newspaper, but its global coverage is excellent. 

Right now, The Guardian has a competition for the Invertebrate of the Year. The Monarch butterfly is one of 10 finalists along with such species as the tongue-biting louse and the amber comet firefly.

Let me quote from The Guardian’s writeup of the Monarch in their April 2 newsletter:

“Imagine your body was the weight of a raisin, supported by just a pair of flimsy, gossamer wings. Now imagine that you had to fly for 3,000 miles, avoiding storms, highways and predators, to ensure your species continued.”

Surely, if the Monarch can put up such a valiant effort year after year, we can pull ourselves out of our slough of despair and take action to make this a better world.

If you agree, please join our Orange County-South Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby/Education. We meet the second Saturday of the month at St. Andrews By-the-Sea United Methodist Church in San Clemente. (We are in the choir room at about 9:30 for a good chin wag before listening to our national meeting.)

Or look for us at the San Clemente GardenFest, Arbor Day in San Clemente, Earth Day in San Juan Capistrano, and, of course, the wonderful Festival of the Butterflies in San Juan Capistrano. We had a ball marching in the Swallows Day Parade! Did you see us with the sun and Earth inflatables and the solar panels? 

Update: This year’s winner as The Guardian’s Invertebrate of the Year is the multisegmented micro-animal, Milnesium tardigradum, which to its credit has survived five great planetary extinction events. As The Guardian editor comments, “Spending most of our days dutifully reporting how we are degrading and destroying life on Earth, the Invertebrate of the Year contest is light relief.” As a Monarch lover, I send my congratulations to all the candidates.  

Christine Kramer is a 24-year resident of San Juan Capistrano, a former librarian, and a member of the South Orange County Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Education.