You don’t need to be a climatologist to know, the times they are a-changin’
Written by Dr. Ed Maibach
We’re Bob Dylan fans here at the Virginia Climate Center. His music is terrific and his poetic lyrics often have an uncanny relevance to our work. Take, for example: You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. Or the classic: For the times they are a-changin.
As the Virginia Climate Opinion Factsheet (below) shows, nearly three quarters of Virginians recognize that our climate is a-changin’ too. The changes over the past 50 years or so are so big that many people don’t need a climatologist to tell them about it—they’ve seen the changes with their own eyes. Changes in the weather, the seasons, and the rate and severity of flooding. It’s all around us, and it’s hard to miss.
These graphics from our Climate Matters program—produced in partnership with Climate Central—illustrate a few of the changes that many people in Virginia have personally experienced over the past 50 or so years. Our mosquito seasons are getting longer, which is not only bothersome, it’s potentially harmful to health because mosquitos transmit dangerous diseases like West Nile Virus. We’re getting more intense rain storms, which increases flooding on streets and in buildings, and can endanger lives. Even the growing zones on our farms and in our gardens are changing.
While community leaders and other residents across Virginia don’t necessarily need us to tell them the climate is a-changin’—because they already know—we do hope they will appreciate knowing more about exactly what is changing in our climate, how quickly, and what they can expect in their community going forward. This kind of information about climate variability (the natural variability in our local climate) and climate change (changes in our local climate as a result of global climate change) can be extremely useful in knowing how to make our communities more resilient to the impacts of climate variability and climate change. Forewarned is forearmed, right?
That’s what we’re all about at the Virginia Climate Center: working to ensure that communities in Virginia are forewarned about the changes that are already happening in our climate, and the changes that are projected to come. Forewarning is an important part of what we can do to help ensure that people, homes and other property, communities, and our natural environment here in Virginia are not needlessly harmed by changes in the climate.
We’d like to hear from you about other ways we can help communities here in Virginia understand and make good decisions about how to manage changes in our local climate. Drop us a line anytime at vaclim@gmu.edu.
Author
Dr. Ed Maibach
Dr. Maibach is co-PI for the Virginia Climate Center and Director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication
