Earth Day has passed but until we make every day, Earth Day, we will be moving in the wrong direction.  It has been said that we don’t inherit our Earth from our ancestors as much as we borrow it from our children.  As Marshall McLuhan has said: “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew”. So,how is the crew doing? How are we doing?
Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet, and its climate, on a global scale. Studying this climate data, collected over many years, reveal the signals of a changing climate.
Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.  Less than 3 percent disagree with that.  That’s a smaller percentage than the percent of people in the United States who still think the Sun goes around the Earth!  The difference between politicians, and corporations seeking answers, and scientists seeking answers, is that scientists look at the data and come to their conclusions whereas politicians and corporations arrive at their conclusions first and then seek the data to support their conclusion.
Climate change deniers like to point to the bitterly cold winter of 2013-2014, along with the near-complete ice-over of Lake Superior, as proof that Global Climate Change is a hoax. Global Climate Change results in greater weather extremes, both cold and hot.
Ornithologist, UMD Professor and Researcher, Gerald Niemi, says: “There is substantial evidence of climate change on birds and bird migration.”  “It’s becoming obvious that Lake Superior is responding to global climate shifts as clearly as anywhere on Earth,” according to the Minnesota Sea Grant. They have found that, since 1980, the lake’s surface water temperature in summer has warmed twice as much as the air above it. More frequent and intense storms, increased climate variability and extremes, and drier summers can be expected.
Using records provided by the Madeline Island Ferry Line, as well as shipping news in the local newspaper dating back to the 1850s, Forrst Howk documented that Bayfield’s ice season has shrunk, on average, by over 45 days in the last 150 years, and most of that change has happened since the 1970s.
Paul Huttner, Minnesota Public Radio meteorologist, says: “What we can credibly say, and support with facts, is that events like the Great Duluth Flood of 2012 ‘fit’ within the overall pattern of climate changes we’re observing in Minnesota. Given the studies showing changes already occurring in the planet’s water cycle as a result of global warming, it’s quite possible that Global Climate Change aided and abetted the extreme rainfall event such as the one that occurred in Duluth by making more moisture available for the thunderstorms to wring out of the air as heavy rainfall.  Global climate change did not cause the thunderstorms, of course, and they would likely have occurred regardless, but it may have made the rainfall heavier than it would otherwise have been.”
This winter’s vast ice on the Great Lakes is bucking a long-term trend of less and less ice as winters have, on average, become warmer. The average amount of ice covering the Great Lakes declined by 71 percent between 1973 and 2011, with Lake Superior ice coverage down 79 percent, according to a report published in 2012 by the American Meteorological Society. Researchers used Coast Guard reports and satellite photographs taken from 1973 to 2010 to determine the ice coverage of all the lakes, with Lake Ontario ice dropping 88 percent while ice in Lake St. Clair (between Lake Huron and Lake Erie) diminished by 37 percent.”  With field data in hand, and computers crunching numbers, it’s becoming obvious that Lake Superior is responding to global climate shifts as clearly as anywhere on Earth.  According to Minnesota Sea Grant: 1.) Lake Superior’s surface water temperature in summer has warmed twice as much as the air above it since 1980.  Per decade, since 1980, surface water temperature in summer has increased about 2 °F (1 °C), while regional air temperature has increased 1 °F (0.5 °C). 2.) Lake Superior’s ice cover is diminishing. The area covered by ice each winter is decreasing by about 0.5% per year. Ice cover in Lake Superior has decreased from 23% to 12% over the last century. 3.) Wind speeds over Lake Superior are increasing. Since 1985, wind speeds have increased by nearly 5% per decade, exceeding trends over land. Scientists believe the faster winds could accelerate the speed of Lake Superior’s water currents, which in turn could affect the aquatic food web. 4.) Lake Superior’s summer stratification season is longer. Spring turnover has become earlier by about 1/2 day per year, leading to earlier summer stratification. The sun-warmed upper layer extends farther into the water column, making fall mixing later. The length of the positively stratified season has increased from 145 to 170 days over the last century.” NASA data shows that: “Global sea level rose about 6.7 inches in the last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly double that of the last century. All three major global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880. Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years. Even though the 2000s witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continued to increase.” Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost 36 to 60 cubic miles of ice per year between 2002 and 2006. Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events, similar to what the Duluth area experienced in 2012.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, according to NASA data, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent. This increase is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the oceans. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasingby about 2 billion tons per year.
The next step is to not let Earth Day be the only day we celebrate our Earth. We won’t truly be taking care of our Earth unless we make every day, through our actions, Earth Day.
I love novelist Alice Hoffman’s thoughts on this: “Once you know some things, you can’t unknow them. It’s a burden that can never be given away.”  You, we, can explore our Earth, and inform ourselves about what is happening to our Earth.  You, we, can volunteer our time and talents to help our Earth.  You, we, can give money that will work to inform and change laws to help our Earth. These are gifts we can give. We must say, with our actions, our gifts, “Happy Earth Day”, every day, to Planet Earth.  But it is, in reality, a gift for our children, and generations of children to come!