DEBORAH DOMINE: Climate change is real, and we need to address it now - Goshen News

DEBORAH DOMINE: Climate change is real, and we need to address it now | Opinion | goshennews.com

According to U.S. Climate Data, the average high temperature in February in Goshen is 36 degrees.

Last week, however, my thermometer measured a temperature in Goshen of 71 degrees. The Goshen News reported that the average temperature in Indiana has gone up 1.2 degrees since 1895. I see it. My daffodils have sprung and the buds on the trees are already growing.

There is no denying climate change.

Philip J. Wolf began teaching science at Goshen High School in 2011. Eight years ago he started “Goshen Weather” on Twitter and the past four years he has been seriously tracking the local climate. If you want an accurate weather forecast look him up on Twitter or Facebook. He says, “climate change is real, it is here, and it is happening now.”

Most Americans agree with Wolf. While the climate change skeptics are loud, a Pew Research Center study shows that 69% of U.S. adults favor steps to reduce climate change and to make the U.S. carbon neutral by 2050.

Wolf says that we all should be looking at objective climate data and if we look, it is hard to make a reasoned argument that our climate is not changing.

He says that one of the biggest factors affecting our climate is the disruption of global ocean currents due to melting ice which is, in turn, changing the salinity and density of our waters. He says the global ocean currents are already beginning to disrupt the flow of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Atlantic seaboard and off the coast of Nova Scotia.

“This change will have significant impact on climate and is happening faster than expected,” he says.

The biggest and most recent local climate change event in Goshen was the historic flooding in the city in 2018. However, Wolf says, there are less visible changes that are even bigger indications of climate change locally. According to Wolf, measurable increases in overnight low temperatures in Goshen shout climate change.

Wolf backs up his observation of warming overnight temperatures with National Weather Service data from the last 110 years. He points out that data shows that two of the highest monthly average low temperatures in 110 years have happened in recent months.

Most recently, Wolf says, was December 2023, which broke a record by having the warmest average low temperatures ever recorded in a December in Goshen. And this month is on track to break another record. Wolf says February 1998 currently holds the record for the warmest low temperatures in a February with average lows of 19 degrees; so far this February is averaging lows of 21.7 degrees.

Wolf is clearly passionate about the weather. He is also clearly passionate about his day job, which is working with students at Goshen High School. He says that climate change is not an issue you hear students talking about in the lunchroom, but it was something often discussed without prompting in his classes on earth science.

He says, “I think our students are very in tune with a lot of things and in ways we don’t give them enough credit for. Climate change is one of those things.”

I just got back from Costa Rica. The International Monetary Fund says Costa Rica has been a pioneer in greening its economy and restoring ecosystems. It has earned international recognition for the country’s environmental policies.

If a Central American country, with limited resources, around the size of Indiana can tackle the issue of climate change, we can too. There is a Native American saying that goes, “we do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”

Our children will inherit this planet. We owe them better.