Saturday, December 31, 2005

Plants and global warming

Earlier today, I was listening to a discussion on Radio 4 about the effects global warming is having on plants. The discussion was based at Kew Gardens in London and focussed on an interview with a gardener there. He was discussing about the changes to growth in plants and that certain plants were already growing buds although this isn't supposed to happen until spring.
This in some respects, is a visible sign of the consequences of global warming. I've noticed in my own garden that my roses still have buds on them and new shoots are appearing on their main stem.
This change really concerns me. I would really hate to go to a time in the future where there were no visible changes in the seasons. I actually really love the differences in our seasons, indeed they're a natural cycle to our life and add meaning to life in many ways.
Symbolically too, seasons represent ourselves and our own life cycle in many ways. If I think of myself and relate me to the seasonal cycle, I'm at a crossover period of seasons. I'm at late summer moving very slowly into autumn. I'm still a fertile woman, if you take biology into the equation although I won't be having more children. I still feel full of life, have a pretty good amount of energy - a source that is representative of the sun and the fires of passion are still burning. (Although when speaking of passion, I would argue this continues for many people, in different aspects, throughout their lives.)
So, if global warming continues at the rate it is now, what will the long term effect on us, as human beings, really be? How will it effect our own life cycle? These are all questions that I have no answer too, but that concern me deeply.

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