CLIMATE CHANGE

By Cameo Miller

Illustration by Bethany Caskey

Whether you believe in climate change or not, it is a fact that weather patterns are changing. I don’t get hysterical over this. After all, the earth has gone through multiple cycles of ice ages and eras when we know that the Sahara desert was once a thriving, green and watery land. But we can all agree that we are experiencing temperature, water and weather pattern changes around us. It is something that we need to adapt to for the sake of our business, our animals, and the land around us.

I grew up in Ohio where the Hinkley Buzzard Days was an annual celebration. Something akin to the swallows of Capistrano, the buzzards always returned to Hinkley, Ohio on March 15 each year. I now live in the middle of Michigan where I noticed the buzzards were in the skies this year prior to March 15 even this far further north. Articles I have read talk about plants consistently blooming three to five weeks earlier than previously, and what this means for the other plants, animals, and insects that rely on them. Snow melts in the mountains are occurring 3 or more weeks earlier. What changes are there in your area and in the regions near you— what are you noticing? You can be preparing to adjust for these changes if you pay attention.

This may effect how we need to think in terms of pasture management—will we need to add in different seeds that will survive in the changing conditions. If so, we should add them into traditional ones so the transition is gradual—for the fields and our horses’ dietary constitutions. Your vet may have already talked to you about the need for additional vaccinations to fight different diseases or parasites that are infiltrating. Or are there ones you no longer need due to the decrease in proliferation or severity of ones which are eradicated by the changes? Temperature changes are also changing and expanding the ranges of various species of ticks and the kinds of diseases that mosquitoes can carry (think trail ride issues, cross country rides, interval training, fox hunting, or anything else where you ride out in the country), as well as expanding the ranges of insects that infect trees, fields, and food crops. Do you need to do some research yourself into this for your area of the country?

Do you live in an area that’s beginning to experience dryer than normal conditions? Multiple areas of the country are experiencing serious to severe water shortages, and many others are seeing drier than normal stretches so this increased scarcity of water may need to be addressed. Do you need to begin collecting rain water for use in your plantings, your pastures, your fields? There are multiple catchment systems that can be used to collect water during times of extra rain so that it is available for use when the rains don’t come. Hint: these have been used all over the world for many thousands of years. We may need to RElearn old ways to cope with conditions which are new ‘again’. Climatologists tell us to expect “less frequent but heavier than normal rainfall events”—conditions that make catchment systems ideal.

Or maybe you live in an area that never has floods, but a near-by area has experienced a flood due to a torrential rainfall event. How could you reshape your existing landscape to channel water away from areas where it would be a serious problem to where it would be just an annoying problem? Are the “floods” around you smaller, but more frequent recently? How about putting in a rain garden which is designed to catch significant amounts of storm water and deal with it safely and efficiently. This, or the catchment systems, could also be useful if you live in an area with clay soil or a higher water table so that something that may have been an occasional headache in the past doesn’t became a significant problem in the future.

We are being told that more extremes and more severe weather will be the norm—hotter, drier, more floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. Do your emergency plans, your emergency preparedness plan signs, any drills with staff and/or students need to be updated? You probably already have a fire emergency plan, but does it include area wide wild fires? Have you never needed a flood plan, but now need to add one? Do you know about the waterborne diseases and chemical hazards of post flood events? If you live in a previously cooler region, do those around you know how to deal with people or horses experiencing heat stroke? What is changing in your area that your staff and/or students need to be aware of and trained on how to react to? What changes do you need to have in place yourself such as alternate routes to safety, decisions about earlier evacuation, or different places to evacuate to? Or maybe things as simple as making sure all saddle racks and feed bins are permanently higher off the floor than was previously necessary.

Whether the change is gradual or accelerated, it would not be wise for us to just ignore it. Those who did not adapt over the past many thousands of years to ice ages or emerging deserts did not survive. No matter what you attribute it to, our weather patterns are changing. We can survive this. There is time to make plans and make changes. We just need to keep ahead of any potential problems from this just as we do with any other recognized challenges. Don’t wait until you are already effected. By making changes now, you keep your students, your animals, and your business safe during these changes.

About the Author:

Cameo Miller is a Masters-level clinical psychologist and a Level IV ARIA Certified Instructor based in Michigan. She is a member of the ARIA Evaluation Panel and an ARIA National Test Center Administrator.