'The climate is always changing'

The climate is always changing — so what makes it different now?

“The climate has never not changed,” he told about 20 people at OSU Extension’s Family and Community Education group meeting. “This is nothing new. But (humans) have accelerated the warming of the planet. We are pushing the pedal further and further to the floor.”

‘We can’t keep waiting to convince people this is happening.’

Mark Cherniak

In the Hood River Valley, changes in climate is “going to be a problem for agriculture,” he said. “We will have issues with irrigation. (Rainfall) will be uneven each year, making rain harder to predict. We’ll have to look at ways to store water.

“There are lots of challenges ahead, especially for the farmers and irrigators,” Cherniak said.

Another issue could be higher soil temperature, bringing new pests and new challenges to fruit production. It’s not so much that daytime temperatures are getting higher — although they are — but that nighttime temperatures aren’t cooling to previously normal levels.

“Mostly nighttime temperatures are going up — that effects everything,” Cherniak said.

The good news is that energy efficiency standards are improving, and alternative power, like solar, is picking up, although it has a long way to go (the 2010 census put family homes at 69 million, but, as of 2015, only 600,000 of those homes have solar).

But, to put it into perspective, “right now, if we take all of the renewable energy … the total generated doesn’t even cover what we use to air condition buildings,” he said.

“We’re going to have to get more dedicated in our everyday lives.”

That means looking for efficiencies everywhere, from cars to storm windows to appliances.

“All of it adds up,” said Cherniak. “All of it counts.

“Climate change is now, not in 2100,” he said. “There is time to mitigate some of the effects.”

Even with efforts to reduce emissions, “we will not be able to prevent droughts, flooding or extreme weather in the coming months and years,” he said. “It might slow down sometimes, but it will not stop.

“It doesn’t matter when it happens — what can we do now? Because the general trend points to that.”

He closed his talk with a biblical quote, “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” from Proverbs, adding his own twist: “Where there is only vision, the people perish sooner and in large numbers.

“We can’t keep waiting to convince people this is happening,” Cherniak said.