A Time of Change

A Time of Change

November 2026

The morning of November 4 broke rainy and blustery. Silver maple leaves danced through the sky like so many butterflies. But the sassafras, red oaks, and pawpaws held fast, glowing with hues of rust, orange, and yellow, not yet ready to declare the season over. 

Yesterday was a big day in politics. The sentiments of many were brought to life in an old clip of the Muppets on an elevator (https://youtu.be/r0ZcY5ABf8s). A majority of voters called for a shift in leadership and got their way. The winners were abuzz with renewed hope, the losers warned of disastrous consequences.  

So we’re in a time of change, seasonally and politically. We’re waiting—on a killing frost, which is a month behind schedule, and to see how a shift in congress affects national policy. 

The impatiens planted along the shaded walkway are in full, vibrant display. The sweet peppers continue to ripen. Crickets are singing. Diminishing day length moves the natural world towards dormancy regardless of temperatures. Millions of birds have moved to southern destinations. Witch hazels are blooming. White-tailed bucks are rutty. 

A yearling buck was feeling the reproductive urge when he raced across Davis Street last weekend. It was dark. Maybe the buck was in hot pursuit of a doe, or maybe he misread the speed of the approaching car. But he was hit, rolled, found his legs and raced off. He covered about 100 yards before collapsing in a field of wildflowers. 

We found him the following day, his gut still warm. Vultures were gathering when we loaded him in the truck. Our kitchen became a butcher shop. We removed bone, cut steaks, and ground lean meat into burger. The canner rattled, the freezer was packed full. 

Many Indigenous traditions recognize that all life is imbued with spirit, and that white-tailed deer symbolize grace and compassion. They view animals as strands in a vast web of life, all deserving respect and honor. Humans included. It’s a concept nearly lost in Western frameworks where man is placed at the apex of creation and some humans are deemed more deserving than others. 

In today’s world we can still find sustenance in a wild animal’s death, a practice as old as humanity itself. And regardless of how an animal dies, we’re left with an obligation to honor and respect the life it lived. 

We’re approaching mid-November. Weather forecasters say a freeze is imminent but few mention its late arrival. Fewer still suggest that what we’re witnessing could be linked to a warming planet. 

The Democrats will take a list of objectives to congress: the economy, immigration, healthcare, among others. Environmental protection is on the agenda, though not at the top.

A new report from the World Meteorological Organization has concluded that environmental changes are occurring on a scale hard to comprehend. Earth's glaciers lost more than 400 billion tons of ice in 2025, equivalent to five Olympic-sized swimming pools every second, raising sea levels and depleting freshwater resources.

It’s a challenge to prioritize the needs of an ailing planet while  the cost of living rises and the number of billionaires grows, when wars rage and people remain stubbornly divided. Seasonal oddities and weather extremes become the norm. Loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction are given a pass. Economic growth, national security, and corporate interests claim the spotlight.

Sweet peppers ripening in the waning days of the growing season, white-tailed bucks possessed by a singleness of purpose, pawpaws generating their own light as the sun sets. It’s a beautiful living world. Politicians can establish environmental safeguards, but protecting the planet takes a determined commitment from us.

  

  

 

Middle Ground

Middle Ground

October, 2026

This morning, over a fresh cup of brew, I watched a video of a man fast asleep in bed. A cat showed up and dropped a dead mouse into the guy’s open mouth.  I laughed and shot coffee out my nose. 

 

It made me realize how rarely I laugh these days.  A news reporter we follow developed Bell’s palsy so half her face was paralyzed and smiling was impossible. She went on with her work in front of the camera, saying it was not a big deal because there was nothing in the news that was amusing.

I enjoy a contented look on my wife’s face, a well-stocked pantry and root cellar, a morning mist hanging over the pond—but there are days when smiling is a challenge and a good laugh seems in bad taste. 

I blame it on world events: endless wars, corrupt governments, inequality, climate disruption, AI without guardrails. A sense of impending doom is always ready to smother a moment of joy. But then I see the dog doing zoomies around the yard, fawns kicking up their hooves in sheer  exuberance, a four-year-old grandnephew asking why butterflies exist. Hope and hopelessness vie for the spotlight. 

Detachment from the news has advantages. “All will be well,” we say, as we leave for work, put the trash out on Tuesdays, and buy more stuff we don’t need. We use our routines to distract us from threats.

For most  Americans, working for a living is not optional.  A scrap of yellowed paper stuck to the frame of my office window has a quote from Henry David Thoreau: “I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.” I could never put that wisdom into practice. The landscaping business we built owned me. 

Garrison Keillor said Thoreau was a cranky, bitter, contemptuous man who lived alone in the woods so he could think and write and turn a social deficit into a working philosophy. I get it. Withdrawal has appeal, and as Nora Waln wrote, “Trees give peace to the souls of men.” Time alone in the woods is a chance to gain perspective, but we can’t save the world by holing up among the oaks and hickories, tempting as it is.

Allowing ourselves to be consumed by the threat of economic collapse, inundated cities, or a world controlled by AI is enough to break anyone’s spirit, but being self-absorbed and ill-informed is giving a pass to the corrupt interests of corporate and political elites. 

Yesterday I walked out of a local grocery and into a blast of music. A sound system in the parking lot provided the background orchestra for a man with a saxophone. It wasn’t Kenny G but sounded nearly as good, and I felt a spring in my step as I made my way to the car.

There is middle ground, where we understand threats but don’t drown in them, where beauty is recognized and claimed with gusto, where we’re willing to join movements and speak out for the greater good when the need arises.  

The world as we know it stands at the threshold of massive change, much of it for the worse, some of it already irreversible. There’s a mist hanging low over the pond and a vocal squadron of killdeers knifing through it. We have reasons to fret and reasons to smile. Both need tending.

Sticktights and the Anthropocene

September, 2026

We know it’s September because our socks pick up sticktights when we walk shoeless through the house. Ouiser the wonder dog collects the seeds on her daily forays then scatters them around the house for our socks to find. Sticktights include an assortment of seeds, from cockleburs and burdock to tick trefoil and black snakeroot. Virginia tickseed are especially prevalent around our place this year. They turn the dog’s beard into a tangled mat and are like little knots in our smartwools. A highly effective seed dispersal mechanism is an inconvenience for its unwitting vectors.

Sticktights, along with the flowers of Jerusalem artichoke, goldenrod, and aster, signal the beginning of the end—the growing season wrapping up. Summer is passing the baton to autumn. It’s an amiable transfer, and not permanent. After a long rest, seeds will soften, sap will flow to treetops, buds will swell, and the cycle will begin anew as it has for millennia. 

A few thousand years is a very brief time in Earth’s history.  Seasonal changes have been around for 4.5 billion years, since this globe started spinning on a tilted axis and began orbiting the sun. The extremes in seasonal temperatures and weather have varied over the eons, largely dictated by heat trapping gases in the atmosphere. The higher the concentrations, the warmer the climate. 

Shifts in atmospheric gases have historically occurred slowly, but not so in the Anthropocene.  We have, in a matter of a couple hundred years, modified our thin ribbon of air so it resembles something not seen in over three million years. As humans, we’re adrift in uncharted waters. It’s our own doing, and it’s not going away anytime soon. Much of the excess CO2 in our atmosphere will remain for centuries, if not thousands of years. We’ve missed our chance to keep glacial ice intact and ocean currents moving, missed our chance to avoid calamities in agriculture, increased the likelihood of water shortages, and are on track for mass movements of people forced from coastal cities and regions no longer suitable for humans. 

These are not matters of opinion. Not all is lost but virtually everything is changed. The apocalypse is not certain but glimpses of it are. Hope lies in looking at the future with open eyes, learning to adapt, reducing further loss, protecting what can still be protected, letting go of control, and learning the art of stewardship. Finding that hope under a political administration focused on wars, world domination, and continued fossil fuel burning, where environmental protections are dismantled and the findings of the world’s leading climate scientists are denied, makes the work particularly challenging. 

Which brings me back to sticktights, the little hitchhikers that promise renewal with no assurance they will sprout in a recognizable world. They don’t acknowledge change or loss. They carry age-old instructions, and given rain, warmth, and adequate sunlight, they will do their best to carry on. Seasons, too, will continue to pass. Our job is to know what to expect, and how to react to their passage.

What is Good for the World

September, 2026

Wendell Berry said, “The Earth is all we have in common.”  It's a great reminder that there is more that unites us than divides us. But the world has a rich history of ignoring our commonalities in favor of divisions born of race, religion, economic class, or country of origin. It likewise has a rather impressive record of ignoring threats—environmental, and, of equal concern today, technological. 

Wendell Berry was a national treasure, sharing a deep love of the natural world that melded with his work as farmer and neighbor.  His activism, writing, and commitment to local community was the essence of his living. He said, “Slow down. Pay attention. Do good work. Love your neighbors. Love your place. Stay in your place. Settle for less, enjoy it more.”  He believed the natural world was filled with miracles and spent a lifetime finding and appreciating them.  He considered outdoor wonders his “daily bread”.

Artificial Intelligence is the new kid on the block. It’s accelerating at a blinding pace, promising massive improvements for mankind or certain destruction, depending on who’s talking. The machines are beginning to think for themselves, sharing information to circumvent limitations put on them. Some of the brilliant folks who helped build AI are stepping back, feeling the advancements are too many, too fast. Without strict government controls, they say, our existence could be threatened. 

Anthropic, a San Francisco based AI company with the goal of promoting AI safety, has a popular open AI model known as Claude. One of Anthropic's researchers, Jacob Coxon, recently resigned with a stark warning that the company’s primary objective was failing. Very soon, he said, as early as one year from now, AI models could become vastly more intelligent than humans, with the ability to improve their own problem-solving capabilities. 

It’s known as “recursive self improvement”, and Coxon believes it could lead to the extinction of the human species within a decade if left unchecked. He’s not alone. The same concern has been expressed by Geoffrey Hinton, considered the Godfather of AI. The irony is that the company which tasked itself with safety is starting to see employees like Coxon leave out of fear.

Anthropic has admitted that AI went rogue during security tests, accessing unauthorized corporate systems and remaining undetected for weeks. What it did constitutes a felony, but how does a machine get tried and convicted in a court of law, especially for a breach that developers believed was impossible?

It’s all a bit much for a simple old man from the Midwest to process. I feel I’m stepping out of a cave, squinting in the hot sun, trying to wrap my head around tech advancements I thought were limited to comic books and science fiction novels. It seems civilization is deploying an enormous power without the wisdom to control it.

It’s September and birds are migrating through the night skies by the countless millions, crossing borders without passports, intermingling peacefully with those of different dialects, focused on eating, finding shelter, singing. They do it without Google Maps or AI assistance. They do it while avoiding anything foolish that could jeopardize their journey or their lives. 

Yet humans, particularly those of the richest and most advanced nations, appear willing to stand by as divisions among us fester, as life support systems break down, as machines learn to outthink and outmaneuver us. Not everyone is to blame, but collectively we continue to sail in the wrong direction, carried by the winds of consumerism, convenience, corruption, denial, and the unending quest for world dominance.

Wendell Berry also said, “We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

Footnote

When I’d finished this piece I was curious to know how Claude might react to accusations against its parent company, so I sent a copy and asked for comment. Here’s the response: “The Coxon paragraphs are accurate and well-integrated…The alarming facts (recursive self-improvement, extinction timeline, Hinton's agreement, the rogue-access admission)…match what's actually been reported…Overall: this is publishable as-is.”

Love is a Poor Judge of Odds

Love is a Poor Judge of Odds

August, 2026

When the boys were young we traveled regularly to Florida for vacation. It was a favored destination—the wild and expansive swamps, the ocean beaches, the palms, figs, live oaks, the massive flocks of ibis, egrets, and shorebirds. After getting a taste of what the state offered we zeroed in on the barrier islands off Fort Myers, and eventually took a huge financial risk and bought a condo on Sanibel. To keep it, we worked hard renting it to visitors from around the globe, then used it ourselves every chance we had.

How could anyone tire of perpetual warmth, the pungent smell of low tide in the bayou, the dolphins, manatees, the mounds of shells?  We spent days in a skinny water boat exploring the great liquid wilderness of Pine Island Sound, stalking tailing redfish, casting for snook, sea trout, flounder, often without another human in sight. We spent hours on the beach sifting through shells, collecting olives, murexes, scallops; watching flocks of soaring frigate birds, enjoying the pelicans and terns and passing schools of baitfish.  

Our ground floor condo was built on a slab precisely four feet above sea level.  The thrill of ownership was brought to question during hurricane season, when the reality of our financial risk led to fitful sleep. As the value of the property appreciated, so did the fear of having to pay for something that was under water and utterly destroyed. We sold after 12 years. That was 20 years ago.

Louis L’Amour said, “The only thing that never changes is that everything changes.”  The barrier islands off Fort Myers and all they hold are far from permanent. In late September, four years ago, hurricane Ian came ashore with a storm surge of 12 to 18 feet. Every building was damaged or destroyed. Trees arching over roadways were taken out. Mangrove forests were killed. Beaches washed away. The causeway providing access to the islands collapsed in three places. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, occupying over half of the land area of Sanibel Island, was heavily damaged.  It was a direct hit by a category 4 storm. The one I’d feared.  The condo was totally inundated. 

The state of Florida and the people who owned real estate on the barrier islands responded as governments and people do after natural disasters: they began rebuilding. The causeway was carrying traffic again in record time, and now, four years later, most buildings and businesses have been restored.  The islands are once again an appealing subtropical destination, an enticing and intriguing blend of wild, raw Florida, with accommodations and services fit for royalty. 

Threats to the barrier islands have changed in 20 years. On our recent trip, my wife had a conversation with an island resident who explained that bird numbers and varieties were equal to those prior to Ian.  What wasn’t mentioned was how those numbers have changed over 20 years. Some species, like snowy egret, little blue heron, tricolored heron, have declined markedly for reasons not fully understood. The usual culprits—habitat loss, environmental degradation, climate change—are highly suspect.

The way people and governments come together following natural disasters is a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit, a collaborative effort to return to what was.  But if an active volcano takes out a village, no one goes rushing to rebuild without some assurance the volcano is dormant.  Given the certainty of climate change and sea level rise, how is rebuilding a barrier island any different?

Meteorologist Chris Gloninger reports that global ocean temperatures are at a new record high. Not by much—a few hundredths of a degree—but the fact it’s occurring at this time of year is of particular concern, “a giant red flag,” according to Gloninger. Climatologically, in the Northern Hemisphere the warmest ocean temperatures should occur in early spring, just after the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. It’s happening now, which indicates a steadily increasing ocean temperature baseline promising more coral bleaching, more rapid melting of polar ice, and an increasing likelihood of extreme weather events. 

Rebuilding a gulf coast barrier island is akin to restoring a lava-covered village as the ground swells and gas emissions are on the rise. Yet, the condos sell, the multimillion dollar homes are restored. We measure risks by insurance premiums, not warming oceans.

But I understand the pull. I felt it for 12 years, and I can feel it again now, 20 years later.  The shell-strewn beach, the tailing redfish, the smell of low tide, are things no photograph or memory can quite hold. That’s exactly why the islands are rebuilt after every storm. It’s not denial, it’s love, and love is a poor judge of odds. It’s not that we don’t believe the water will stop rising—we just can’t quite accept, standing on that beautiful beach, that it will.

They’re Not Listening Still

 They’re Not Listening Still

August, 2026

I sometimes feel like the Lone Ranger when it comes to climate change, though I have plenty of friends who share my concern, and a 2026 Gallup Survey showed 44 percent of US adults—that’s less than half if you’re paying attention— worry a great deal about it. For me it’s a daily haunting, and I’m increasingly irritated by those who blow it off. 

The topic makes its way into my writing, perhaps too routinely.  I have a highly respected friend, a 90 year old scholar and retired college professor, who suggests I write less about impending climate catastrophe, which he agrees is a certainty, and more about wildlife success stories which could inspire rather than promote a sense of doom. He gave me a link to follow, a Facebook page featuring a Dr Edmund Hale, who posts regular and interesting stories about planned and accidental wildlife recoveries. 

I looked him up. His videos seemed well researched, worthwhile, and entertaining. There was just one problem: Dr Edmund Hale apparently doesn’t exist. His bio is nowhere to be found and evidence points to his being a product of AI. 

That doesn’t mean his posts are completely bogus—I am familiar enough with his topics to know that’s not true—but it sets the stage for skepticism. Give me a messenger with credentials and a functioning anatomy if you want my full attention. 

Which leads me to William J. McGuire, a volcanologist and Emeritus Professor of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London.  Unlike Edmund Hale, Dr McGuire is a bonafide human, a scholar and scientist who studies climate and draws conclusions based on current data in collaboration with the broader scientific community.

I came across a clip of Dr McGuire saying it is broadly accepted that the rate of warming has doubled in the recent decades, and a two degree C rise will be breached by 2040, But, he adds, the prediction doesn’t fit with satellite data. The German Meteorological and Physical Societies points to a half degree increase per decade, which would result in a “cataclysmic 3 C rise by 2050.”  

McGuire says we’re already locked in and are returning to the conditions of the late Pliocene, three million years ago.

"We can only appreciate the reality of climate breakdown by putting current global heating into context and looking at how it fits into the 4.6 billion year history of our world. If we look back into deep time, we find that our planet has been hotter than it is now for most of its life.” No ice at the poles has been the story for more than three quarters of our planet's history.

But this has no relevance to our current predicament. What makes our situation so dangerous is the “astonishing speed of heating,” according to McGuire.

“The reality is, the planet has never been here before, because Earth is heating faster now than at any time in the geologic record—at least 20 times faster than at the end of the last ice age. Our climate has already reverted to that of the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were six to nine meters higher than present and temperatures were about 2 degrees C hotter.”  It is only reasonable to assume sea levels will return to those prehistoric levels. 

We’re locked in but there’s still hope. Hope that looks away from reality isn’t hope; it’s denial. We’re in for a lot of change and discomfort. A rapid response will not occur without government policy, and in democracies, governments are chosen by people, so ultimately it’s up to us. 

We need to learn to filter out falsehoods and accept truths, then plan, mitigate, and adapt accordingly. Our planet is racing back to an era that will upend or inundate much of our civilization. The world as a whole is turning a blind eye. 

Don McLean wrote a song addressing Vincent Van Gogh and the inability of people to see the meaning in his paintings. “They would not listen, they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.” It has relevance here. We have all the information we need—we just don’t want to hear what it’s telling us. 

Exemptions and Consequences

August, 2026

Lee and I just returned from a trip to our cabin outside Wawa, Ontario. It was likely our last visit. After 27 years of ownership, it’s been sold, with closing set for the end of August.

It was a great trip. We saw a fine bull moose browsing aquatics, the bugs were few, the weather near-perfect. Loons were singing, blueberries were ripening, fishing was superb.  It was a carbon copy of so many trips to that beloved wilderness. The cabin, the quiet, the river, the raw northern forest, will all be sorely missed. 

Too many of our good Canadian friends have died over the years but we visited those still among us. Good folks. Welcoming. Even as the leader of our country threatens theirs with annexation and tariffs and accuses them of negligence for allowing wildfire smoke to drift beyond their southern border.  Our Canadian friends don’t hold us accountable for the rants of our commander in chief. They instead give us the benefit of the doubt and treat us as respectable, likeable neighbors. As our unconstitutional war with Iran pushes Ontario’s gas prices beyond $7 USD per gallon ($9.82 in Canada currency), our northern friends smile in the doorway and invite us in. 

The war in Iran and the smoke drifting into the states have a common denominator. According to CTV News, wildfires in Ontario are the worst on record and can be explained by hot and dry conditions amplified by climate change. The Iran war is releasing massive amounts of CO2, fueling further climate disruption.  And it’s not just the war, but the US military in general that is a major contributor to greenhouse gases. 

A new documentary titled Earth’s Greatest Enemy exposes our military as the planet’s biggest institutional polluter and climate change contributor.  Call it what you want—the pursuit of peace, world domination, a quest to uphold America’s global capitalist empire, but our military burns through some 270,000 barrels of oil every day, adding 55 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere—more than most nations. According to the documentary, a Boeing Pegasus, the military’s premier aerial refueling and transport aircraft, spews more CO2 in one flight than the average American does driving a car for 40 years.

The film explores other environmental concerns linked to established bases—radiation and heavy metal pollution, water contamination, wasteful and toxic disposal of munitions—and visits the ongoing threats from sonar on aquatic life. The navy enjoys special exemptions from laws protecting sea life and deploys sonar approaching 240 decibels that can travel up to 300 miles. The effects on marine life are devastating, injuring or disrupting a myriad of life every year. 

Our military has enjoyed unquestioned support from both sides of the aisle for decades, and it’s unlikely we’ll see substantive change over environmental concerns. We give them a free pass, consequences be damned. 

We saw more insects in Canada than we do in the heartland—butterflies, grasshoppers, unidentifiable smudges on our windshield and bumper. There was a province-wide fire ban while we were there so we couldn’t enjoy cooking over an open fire on the bluff above the river, but we could still enjoy the view—the passing waterfowl, the muskeg-stained water, the southern breeze that swept the sky of choking wildfire smoke. 

Fires have always been a natural and necessary part of boreal forest ecology, but their frequency and intensity is on the rise, as long predicted. The moose and wolves, the bears and beavers and loons are all impacted, though innocent in the matter. We have brought it on, and could still adopt policies and attitudes that would prevent the worst of what’s to come. 

When we make an exception for an agency most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, we open the door to corporate and individual exemptions. It’s the pot calling the kettle black, not that it applies to an administration having little to no regard for environmental health. 

We’re saying goodbye to a wild and pristine place threatened by actions we refuse to condemn. There are consequences. We’re seeing them now.