I spent vast amounts of time outside in North Florida when I was kid, in fields and rivers, springs and forests. I knew the rhythm of the place as well as anyone can know anything. I had deep within me the knowledge of what sprouted when; what fish bit what time of year; when the first butterflies would emerge and when the cypress trees would start to green again.
None of those hold true anymore. It’s all been disrupted. Climate change has warmed North Florida so much that plants that died back in the winter still grow even in January and butterflies can be found all year long there. Even plants that are killed by the frost sprout weeks or sometimes months earlier. Nothing is like it was.
It’s easy to claim climate change isn’t happening when you sit in a room all day annihilating brain cells with Fox News, too obese to walk across a parking lot much less hike through the wilderness. It’s a different thing when you see it with your own eyes and feel it with your own skin. Even more than the official statistics and IPC reports, I know climate change is real because I have experienced it directly. It’s happening and it is intensifying. It’s the most obvious thing in the world if you know a place like I did, once.