Unless you’re an avid skier or for some strange reason love to have the wicked, winter winds carve you up with an icy scythe, we can’t wait to embrace spring.
We crave it as much as our next breath.
We flobber after spring like seals.
So when spring arrives prematurely, as it did this year, we are thrilled that the weather
is joyously, wondrously, happily upside down.
We should not be.Because it really is sadly, terribly, angrily upside down.
I don’t know what it is about this world, but all good things seem to come with a price.
Eat too much sugar and you get fat and perhaps diabetic.
Drink too much alcohol and your liver looks like live bait.
So it is with a too early spring.
The bleat of the lamb is not supposed to precede the roar of the lion.
But as we are finding out, climate change is transforming our weather into a game of three-card Monte.
We can’t win.When spring-like weather pops up way too soon, many plants bloom earlier than usual.
It’s a matter of stimulus and response.
Alas, the early warming does not affect all plants equally. Apparently, this could disturb the fragile balance of ecosystems and open the door to invasive species.
God knows we already have too many weird, nasty species so the last thing we need are more micro critters with bad intentions.
When plants and flowers do bloom early, they face increased chances they might be killed off when temperatures suddenly drop and heavy snowfall smothers them as happened here this March.
Alas, the chalices of lilies may be depleted this year.
Even more important, a premature spring hits us in the gut with a wrecking ball.
Many creatures rely on plants for food. If flowering schedules change, it could jeopardize food supplies.
Pollinators like bees could have a tougher time pollinating crops and thereby sparking seed production.
That’s bad for plants and farmers alike, since pollinators are needed to produce more than 90 commercial crops in North America, including nuts, fruits and vegetables.
I’m getting hungry just thinking about that.
There is more bad news about a too early spring if you suffer from allergies like I do.
The beginning of springs tends to kick off allergy season for tens of millions of Americans, and research shows that its early arrival extends and exacerbates those problems.
This year I may have to buy Kleenex boxes by the dozen. And I already am just one more violent sneeze away from herniating a lumbar disc.
