My Thoughts on Global Warming and Oregon and Staying in Utah

In college I had to do a research project on global warming.  I was taking geology because I couldn't stomach physics or chemistry, but let me tell you, it was no walk in the park.  The teacher must have known that words like chemistry and physics turn otherwise happy, partying, havin' a good time students into pillars of fear.  She wasn't giving any of us a break and looking back now, perhaps I could have gotten a better grade out of physics.

Our final project was to do a research poster on global warming.  I had to fight my way through a lot of questions to get my topic approved... global warming in the oceans.  And by oceans, I secretly meant whales, though I could never say that outloud.  This wasn't biology for goodness sakes, as the teacher kept reminding me.  But in the end I won.

I did my report on the ocean aka beluga whales.  It starts in the ocean, as you can suspect, as the belugas are wintering in the arctic they are eating krill.  Krill feast on a certain algea that cannot survive in water that varies even one degree.  It is a very small margin and everything must be perfect for this certain algae to grow and if there is no algae, there is no krill and with no krill there is no beluga.  And you know what?  That temperature change is happening and the algae isn't growing like it used to.

But, to bring this more back to home... Oregon is changing.  No 'global warming' is happening, that's for certain, but something is most definitely changing for the colder.  Whether anyone has scientifically looked into this or not, I have no idea, but I think they had better if they don't want to miss it.  'Cause right now we know that just one degree difference can send a chain of events into place that perhaps we would rather avoid.  And someone is going to be sad some day in 20 years when strawberries won't even grow in Oregon and everyone is asking 'when did this happen?' and the scientists look at their charts and say, oh... 2012.

Right.  You think I am fibbing?  I was married in 2010 and the reason I remember the change in the weather so well was that the seeds that we planted to have flowers ready for the middle of summer rotted in the ground.  It was that rainy.

The next year, 2011, The strawberries weren't ready until a week or two after school let out.  When I was picking strawberries we were out there after school in the evenings picking flats of berries.  Just a few of us.  But they were there.

This year, 2012, the berries rotted on the ground.  There just wasn't enough sun to turn them red (seriously, strawberries are more like humans than most believe) and there was too much rain.

I don't know what's going to happen next year, but it sure isn't going to be pretty.

Steven hollers every time I say this, but I really don't want to go back to Oregon.  It is soooo cold and wet!  And I don't think it's going to be changing anytime soon.  Sure, the Oregon I left in highschool was pretty awesome.  It was green, in more ways than one, people were weird and friendly, the weather was mild... it was all you could ever want.  But now, when I go back and it's too cold for shorts the end of July, I don't want to go back.  When Alaska is in need of a whole new wardrobe to visit her grandmas because here in Utah she runs around in a onesie all day we've got a problem.

There, I've said it.  I am not hating on Oregon.  After all, it made me the awesome person I am today, but it definitely isn't the same state I left it 6 years ago.  So, Oregon, clean up your act if you want me back.  Or... perhaps I will live in Oregon but where the rain isn't so frequent.  Like say Pendelton.  To do that I'll have to purchase a couple of horses as well.  You can't live in the biggest rodeo city and not have a horse.  Or maybe I'll stay in Utah forever.  Shhh, don't tell Steven.  But seriously, this has got to be the craft capital of the world.  Not to mention all of the modest clothing and the dry weather that allows your straightened hair to stay straight all day, even in the dead of winter.  It's bliss.