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# 2025-08-11 - Historic Awareness Of Climate Change
> When the forests go, everything goes--even the climate. You will
> hear the learned deny this. Sober, scientific gentlemen will refute
> the assertion. Grave and painstaking statisticians present data to
> confound you.
>
> --Robert Chambers, 1923
I have been hearing about climate change denial since the early 1990's.
I was surprised to learn that it is not a recent development.
Outdoorsmen have been voices crying in the wilderness about the
effects of deforestation and climate change since before my
grandparents were born. See below for relevant quotes.
# The American Forests by John Muir (1897)
The cool shades of the forest give rise to moist beds and currents of
air, and the sod of grasses and the various flowering plants and
shrubs thus fostered, together with the network and sponge of tree
roots, absorb and hold back the rain and the waters from melting
snow, compelling them to ooze and percolate and flow gently through
the soil in streams that never dry. All the pine needles and rootlets
and blades of grass, and the fallen decaying trunks of trees, are
dams, storing the bounty of the clouds and dispensing it in perennial
life-giving streams, instead of allowing it to gather suddenly and
rush headlong in short-lived devastating floods.
The American Forests by John Muir (1897)
# The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks by John Muir (1901)
[John Muir wrote that trees CAUSE weather and have a beneficial
effect on the climate.]
In the northern groves, the only ones that at first came under the
observation of students, there are but few seedlings and young trees
to take the places of the old ones. Therefore the species was
regarded as doomed to speedy extinction, as being only an expiring
remnant vanquished in the so-called struggle for life, and shoved
into its last strongholds in moist glens where conditions are
exceptionally favorable. But the majestic continuous forests of the
south end of the belt create a very different impression. Here, as we
have seen, no tree in the forest is more enduringly established.
Nevertheless it is oftentimes vaguely said that the Sierra climate is
drying out, and that this oncoming, constantly increasing drought
will of itself surely extinguish King Sequoia, though sections of
wood-rings show that there has been no appreciable change of climate
during the last forty centuries. Furthermore, that Sequoia can grow
and is growing on as dry ground as any of its neighbors or rivals, we
have seen proved over and over again. "Why, then," it will be asked,
"are the Big Tree groves always found on well-watered spots?" Simply
because Big Trees give rise to streams. It is a mistake to suppose
that the water is the cause of the groves being there. On the
contrary, the groves are the cause of the water being there. The
roots of this immense tree fill the ground, forming a sponge which
hoards the bounty of the clouds and sends it forth in clear perennial
streams instead of allowing it to rush headlong in short-lived
destructive floods. Evaporation is also checked, and the air kept
still in the shady Sequoia depths, while thirsty robber winds are
shut out.
Since, then, it appears that Sequoia can and does grow on as dry
ground as its neighbors and that the greater moisture found with it
is an effect rather than a cause of its presence, the notions as to
the former greater extension of the species and its near approach to
extinction, based on its supposed dependence on greater moisture, are
seen to be erroneous. Indeed, all my observations go to show that in
case of prolonged drought the sugar pines and firs would die before
Sequoia. Again, if the restricted and irregular distribution of the
species be interpreted as the result of the desiccation of the range,
then, instead of increasing in individuals toward the south, where
the rainfall is less, it should diminish.
The Sequoia ... by John Muir (1901)
# When the Forests Go-- by Robert W. Chambers (1923)
When the forests go, everything goes--even the climate. You will hear
the learned deny this. Sober, scientific gentlemen will refute the
assertion. Grave and painstaking statisticians present data to
confound you.
On the other hand, that celebrated institution of our country, known
in every cross-road hamlet throughout the land as
"The Oldest Inhabitant," will confirm the statement in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred.
He will tell you that since his boyhood days the local climate has
changed.
Although I am not yet qualified by years and wisdom to take my seat
among these reverend elders of the republic, still perhaps my life
has covered a period sufficient to make some observations of mine not
entirely uninteresting both to the local sage and to the soulless
statistician.
If these observations have any value at all, obviously their value is
local. Therefore it is of locality that I venture to speak, of my own
home in Northeastern New York State.
Imitating the local oracle, I begin with "When I was a boy"--if
nobody objects. And my first suggestion is that in my district the
winters are longer and more severe, and the summers hotter and
briefer, than in the days of my early youth--or any former days at
all.
The proofs I offer are these: A number of trees, shrubs, and flowers,
which at that time grew and flourished in my district, are not now
hardy in that climate. The common, fragrant Chinese Honeysuckle will
not live there now unless heavily mulched. And even so it remains
dwarfed and flowers sparsely, and sooner or later is winter-killed.
This also is true of Forsythia or Golden Bell. And as for Wistaria,
it is always winter-killed now. So is the Trumpet Vine and most
roses. Shorter summers with hotter and briefer days, and colder
nights, make the growing up of certain animals practically
impossible, animals which flourished in my early days.
s for farming, the shortening of summers are threatening both corn
and potatoes with the blight of early frost. Nowhere is the hazard
greater in farming than in my district where in my youth farming was
a perfectly legitimate gamble.
In those days, too, the sycamore grew there and the black walnut. The
former, now, will not survive the winters; the latter only with
difficulty, and it remains but a poor specimen of tree.
My part of the country was the national home of the beech, maple,
oak, and white pine. Nobody ever dreamed that cold could kill any of
these hardy forest trees. In all the history of the colony and state
I never had heard of cold weather killing any of these native trees
of ours.
But half a dozen years ago or so hundreds of great beeches, oaks,
maples were killed by cold in my district--trees seventy years old, a
hundred, two hundred and even older. Every tree in an apple orchard
nearly a hundred years old was killed. And all this took place in my
own woods and on my own place. I know of colonial and state records
of arctic temperature in New York State. Often is cited the freezing
of New York Bay, and the transportation by horses of heavy artillery
across the ice to Governour’s and Staten Islands. But, I think, what
saved the forests in those days was the forest itself, and our full
lakes and streams.
But there were no great forests to save the splendid silvery beeches
towering in my woods; and the water courses and reservoirs were only
pitiable phantoms of what once they had been.
And so our recording thermometers marked 56°F below zero; and my
forest giants died where they stood, giants that had witnessed the
fury of the Iroquois in their paint.
Not all died--not even a considerable part of these ancient
trees--and only a few of the first growth--some oaks, ash, and black
cherry. Three men touching hands might encircle these ash and oak
trees. But I am convinced that never before had climate done murder
on our hardy northern trees; and that, had the vanished forests still
stood, no murder would have been accomplished.
Among other details which convince me that the local climate has
changed and is changing--birds formerly visiting the district visit
it no more or very rarely, I may mention the Scarlet Tanager, not
uncommon in my boyhood, now a rare visitor. The Brown Thrasher, the
Rose-breasted Grosbeak, even the Cardinal were to be seen and heard.
They are to be seen and heard no longer there.
As for butterflies--they and the moths are few compared to what once
they were--few in numbers, fewer in species where once they swarmed.
In my early youth I have seen milkweed bloom covered with the
beautiful Argymus Idalia. In the last thirty years I have seen only
one or two in a year--some years none at all.
And once all the brilliant members of the Vanessa family were common;
and all the lordly Swallowtails; and our gardens, at dusk, were full
of Sphinx-moths and their feathery humming. It is different now. The
Red Admiral comes but Milbert's butterfly seldom which once was so
common. Turnus still lords it over the lilacs, but
asterius which once jewelled acres of snowy buck-wheat bloom is no
longer common.
These few, brief observations may valueless to convince the scientist
and statistician, but my friends the local sages and I agree that our
climate has sadly changed and is still changing.
We do not lay every loss and disaster to the ruthless slaughter or
our forests; we know what imported pests have done to chestnut, white
pine, and oak. We know that our Red-breasted pigeons are extinct, and
we suspect the reason; but why does more than arctic cold come and
kill trees in our few remaining woods--trees a hundred years old?
* * *
Not long ago I stood with a local wise man of great wisdom and vaster
age; and I said: "Do you remember the fine Mulberry trees trees that
grew on that spot?"
"Yes." he said, "but you try to grow orange trees in this country
today."
* * *
Thus, and with similar items of evidence, I am led to surmise that
when the forests go, everything goes--even the climate.
When the Forests Go-- by Robert W. Chambers (1923)
# Trees And Climate by Frank Holden (1926)
The United States. Bureau of Forestry says that trees are being cut
off four times as fast as they are being grown.
The papers are full of conservation articles telling of the things
that will happen to the country when the trees are gone. They tell us
that a country without trees is a land of torrid heat in summer, of
streams that go dry the hot season, and are raging torrents when it
rains, and of crops that burn up because of lack of moisture in the
air. Very few of these articles, however, tell us just how trees come
to have such a great influence on the climate and water supply.
It is easy to realize that the roots of trees, forming a vast network
underground, help to keep the ground from packing and thus gives the
water a chance to soak into the ground instead of at once running
into the water courses. Then, too, the dead leaves and branches on
the ground form a spongy mass that is capable of soaking up an
immense amount of water and feeding it into the ground slowly for
some time after the rain has ceased. It is this water, held back by
the trees and allowed to soak into the ground that reappears at some
spring, maybe miles away, thus helping to keep the streams running
during dry seasons.
All this is easy to understand because we can see it to some extent.
The thing we cannot see is the chemical laboratory hidden away in
each tree leaf and the part it plays in purifying the air and keeping
it filled with moisture
These tiny laboratories take the water sent up to them by the roots,
break it its component parts, hydrogen and oxygen, add the poisonous
carbon dioxide gas from the air and thus form starch. As soon as the
sun comes up in the morning these little starch factories start
working and they work straight through to sundown, without time for
lunch, because sunlight is the power they run on and this power must
not be wasted. Each leaf has a system of pipes or tubes that carries
the water sent up by the roots around through the leaves and return
pipes that takes the starch in liquid form back down to be
distributed through the tree even to the lowest roots. This liquid
starch is the food on which the tree lives.
If we bake a stick of wood until the hydrogen and oxygen have been
driven out, we have left a stick of charcoal. This is almost pure
carbon and all of it came from the carbon dioxide gas in the air.
In addition to the work the leaf laboratories do in removing carbon
dioxide from the air and thus purifying it for breathing purposes,
two main by products are given off in the making of starch0--oxygen
and water--the oxygen being in the same amount as the carbon dioxide
taken from the air. The water evaporated by the leaves is the surplus
sent up by the roots. An average sized oak tree will evaporate about
150 gallons of water per day.
The effect that the water evaporated by the leaves has in tempering
the heat of summer can hardly be imagined. To begin with, the leaves,
because water is evaporating from them, are cooler than the
surrounding air and the wind that blows across miles of forest wil be
cooled considerably by contact with the leaves. Then, too, wind
blowing through trees will pick up the moisture discharged by the
leaves and so prevent the scorching effect we sometimes get from the
hot winds that are likely to follow a long dry spell. A hot wind is
merely wind without moisture.
Trees And Climate by Frank Holden (1926)
tags: biophilia,history,outdoor
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