It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Preserve Southern Heritage. Fight Global Warming. |
Southerners tend to take their regional heritage very seriously, seeking to preserve the South as they know it from corrupting forces. Southern voters ought to be upset, therefore, at the results of a recent study that suggests that Southern heritage is facing a new threat, not from Yankee carpetbaggers, but greenhouse gases.
Bruce Allen, a researcher from Ohio State University, has been conducting surveys of bottomland hardwood forests in the American South. The results of his surveys indicate that the growth of vines in those forests is significantly higher than it has been in the past. As a result, the combination of the trees found in those forests is changing. As vines grow up their host trees, they alter the ability of the trees to compete, and change the structure of the canopy itself. “There are now so many vines that they’re starting to change the makeup of the forest,” says Allen. Before long, Allen indicates, people could walk through the Southern bottomlands and see forests that their Southern ancestors would not recognize.
The heritage of the South is about a lot more than just the confederate battle flag and singing Dixie. Part of Southern heritage is the region’s natural heritage, the backdrop of field and forest that generations of Southerners identify as uniquely theirs. That natural heritage appears to be changing, perhaps for good.
The new rampant growth in vines, Allen says, is consistent with increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Vines in particular are known to grow more vigorously when exposed to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide than normal. As atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen, Allen suggests, so has the rate of vine growth in Southern bottomland hardwood forests.
Carbon dioxide is also a contributor to the global rise in atmospheric temperatures. So, one important way to preserve the natural heritage of the South, is to fight global warming. To fight global warming, we need a progressive President who doesn’t deny that the problem exists.
(Source: Ohio State University Research News, July 17, 2007)
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