Earth Day reflections on the state of nature in Ohio and globally

• Earth Day is April 22.
• Governor Mike DeWine has taken some notable steps to protect the environment.
• However, climate change remains a reality Ohio is going to have to deal with.

Earth Day 2026, which is marked nationwide on April 22, will be Mike DeWine’s last during his eight-year term as governor.

Those years have brought considerable change to nature and what we know about it, largely outside of Ohio, which is, after all, where most of the world lies.

Whatever the world thinks about Earth Day and what it might stand for, governors have the power to effect change – just not on a planetary scale. Any work done inside the framework of the 35^th-largest of the 50 U.S. states isn’t likely to alter the direction of history.

Nonetheless, hunters, fishers, wildlife watchers and even ardent Earth Day celebrants might acknowledge that DeWine has done some helpful things.

One of the first was hiring Mary Mertz as director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Among her many accomplishments, she helped restore bureaucratic order and sense of mission to an Ohio Division of Wildlife left wobbling by DeWine’s predecessor.

DeWine kept a promise made during his initial election campaign to help complete the purchase of a huge tract of American Electric Power land connecting to the existing Jesse Owens State Park in Morgan County. In total, the governor added more than 50,000 acres to build the largest contiguous expanse of park and wildlife area in the state.

The governor’s long-running H2Ohio Initiative to build wetland buffers at the headwaters of numerous streams has shown effectiveness, follow-up research indicates, in helping reduce harmful chemical runoff that feeds summer blooms of toxic algae.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS: Read more about Ohio hunting and fishing

Funding for the water initiative took a hit in the biennial budget passed in 2025. What comes out of the 2027 budget will come under a different governor.

No matter how worthy and well-intentioned, meanwhile, none of what’s transpired during DeWine’s tenure is likely to save Ohioans from what appears to be approaching.

“Our entire infrastructure and civilization are based around a climate that no longer exists,” said John Marsham, professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Leeds in England, as quoted by environmental writer Robert Hunziker.

March, it turns out, was the warmest on record in the United States. Ohioans might be surprised to know that the region around the Great Lakes and the Northeast comprised one of the few spots on the globe that didn’t experience unusual or record global winter warmth.

The 12-month period ending last month was the warmest ever observed in the United States, according to data provided by the crippled federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

What’s more, January through March was the driest start to a U.S. year ever, drier than the Dust Bowl years, Yale Climate Connections reported.

Phoenix hit consecutive days of high temperatures in March that it had not experienced previously until May. Fourteen states posted record March high temperatures.

Another cycle of El Nino heat is building, meteorologists say.

Increasing temperatures were indicated as a cause for a 72.4% decline in flying insects between 2004 and 2024 in a Colorado subalpine meadow subject to little direct human impact, a university study showed.

Both the iconic emperor penguin and the Antarctic fur seal have been deemed endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Warming oceans and melting sea ice are being blamed for a huge drop in the population of both species.

The high level of atmospheric carbon dioxide in human blood is weakening human bones, suggests a study published in Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health. 

Atmospheric CO2 hit another record recently, although the alarming data can’t be corroborated, as a NOAA climate website is no longer being updated.