Our home towns are being destroyed by climate change.
By Asher Silas Hardy
The destruction of our natural resources will be Michigan’s downfall. Climate change isn’t just killing the North Pole, it is killing our future and destroying our past.
Remember the 2020 Sanford flood and the devastation it caused? Were you one of the hundreds of thousands of people to lose power in these recent summer storms? That’s climate change; it is already here, and it will ruin us.
Just over a quarter of our economy is dependent on our natural resources. Michigan’s agriculture industry contributes $104.7 billion annually to our economy. According to the U.S Department of Agriculture 2022 report, Michigan was the fourth highest earning state for crops. According to Tourism Economics, our tourism industry brought in $48.5 billion dollars in 2022. One of the largest draws to Michigan is outdoor activities, like fishing, which commercially adds $7 billion to our GDP.
Our weather patterns have been shifting over the last 50 years – even more so the last 10 – with winter starting later and harsher. By going through Michigan Technical University’s snowfall records, we can compare snowfall in the Upper Peninsula from 100 years ago to today.
In 1922, winter came in gently and left just the same, with 140 inches of snow for the season. In 2022 winter started in November, became brutal in December, and brought down a total 276 inches of snow. That’s double the snow we had 100 years ago.
The Environmental Law & Policy Center worked with scientists and universities from all around the Great Lakes region to compile their observations. Precipitation patterns are changing across the entire region. The inconsistency of rain results in higher irrigation and labor costs for our farmers. When it does rain, it storms, and those storms put strain on our water infrastructure and power grid. It also causes property damage from falling trees or hail and lost income from being unable to work without power.
These intense storms cause excess runoff from farms, bringing manure and pesticides into our water. Higher temperatures and run-off fertilizers have resulted in explosive growth in algae and E. Coli.This makes treating our drinking water more expensive, and treating our swimming water is even worse. Beaches all over Michigan have been closed due to this. Our small towns can’t afford expensive chemical treatments to make these beaches safe again, so we’re forced to lose them.
An unexpected loss in Michigan is holiday magic. The Midland Santa House isn’t the same without snow to reflect the lights. Sled hills and ski slopes are nothing without snow, which is expensive to create artificially. White Christmas is bittersweet nowadays, and it’s all because our winter season is being pushed from October-March to January-May.
Earth is our home, but it can be hard to conceptualize the effects of climate change on a global scale. But this is our state, our cities, our neighborhoods that are being impacted by climate change. We have to care, we have to demand that our government cares, that they stop turning a blind eye to climate change. We have to care or no one will.
