Palm Trees in New Castle?

It's hot on the Fourth of July.  It's a comfortable 77 where I am sitting, indoors with air-conditioning.  Outdoors it's a blistering 93 degrees Fahrenheit, under a brutal sun.


We've has a week's worth of 90+ degree days.  Most of the time I enjoy the warmer weather.  It was a very mild winter in New Castle, Pennsylvania, 2011-12, and spring was simply gorgeous, with that streak of 80+ degree days at the end of March which prematurely brought out of the ground all the spring flowers.   Some of the mild spring days bring out brilliant sunshine and impossibly blue skies--so unlike our usually cloudy western Pennsylvania springs.


But what's comfortable for me (with large doses of car and house and church air-conditioning) can be near deadly for others.  Last Friday it reached 104 in Washington, D.C., followed by a "derecho," a harsh line of storms which killed two persons and left more than one million persons in the capital region without electricity.  Some of those folks still have not been connected to the grid, five days later.  Over the past few days many southern U.S cities have hit all-time high temperatures:  105 in Raleigh; 106 in Atlanta; 108 in Columbia, S.C.; and 109 in Nashville.


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the past winter was the fourth-warmest on record in the United States.  And the months of spring--March, April, May--were the warmest since record keeping began in 1895.  


Further, nine of the warmest ten years on record have occurred since 2000.  These statistics, put together into a coherent pattern, are what has come to be known as "global warning."  Because of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, global temperatures are almost a full degree warmer than they were in the mid-20th century.


As I said, I like these warmer temperatures.  (Beware:  Suspect childhood remembrances ahead.)  My recollection of attending grade school is that after Halloween, and certainly by Thanksgiving, Mom had to drag out of the attic the boots, gloves, scarves, tossel hats, and sweaters we needed to wear in order to walk the 7/10 of a mile to St. Wendelin Grade School.   Winter went from early November to Easter.  As I moved into adulthood, I joined my Dad as a charter member of the "I hate winter" club.


My first three years as a pastor, on the North Side of Pittsburgh, constituted two of the snowiest winters on record (1992-92 and 1993-94).  Yet over the past 15 years my impression of a Pittsburgh winter has shrunk.  In my mind winter is now a paltry ten week period from New Year's Day to St. Patrick's Day (1/1 to 3/17).  Yes, there was that Halloween 10" snowstorm a decade ago, and the 36" of snow a nor'easter brought in the first week of February two years ago, but we've really escaped most of the wickedness of winter.


As a pastor, I like "no snow" and "mild temperatures."  You don't have to shovel rain or heat, and higher temps in winter mean less expenses in the parish budget.


But global warming is a serious topic.  No less than the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences issued a document in May 2011, "calling on all people and nations to recognize the serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other land uses."  The authors of the report go on to say that "Failure to mitigate climate change will violate our duty to the vulnerable of the  earth, including those dependent on the water supply of mountain glaciers and those facing rising sea level and stronger storm surges....All nations must ensure that their actions are strong enough and prompt enough to address the increasing impacts and growing risk of climate change and to avoid catastrophic irreversible consequences."   (See a link to the full report at www.catholicclimatecovenant.org .)


No less than Pope Benedict XVI, whom some have dubbed "the greenest pope ever," wrote in his 2010 World Day of Peace statement, "if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us."  (Read the full statement at www.vatican.va .) 


Palm trees are not coming to New Castle next year.  But if the current trend continues, and there is every indication that it will, we will continue to enjoy warmer temperatures.  What that means for the rest of the planet is another story.