Signs of global warming sprout in Paso Robles backyard

My backyard may be telling me global warming is real. My daffodils are already in bloom. They’re the little kind with several blossoms on one stem. But maybe they always bloom this time of year and I just don’t remember. I should keep a garden diary.

I noticed the blossoms Monday when I pruned my rose bushes. The bushes were sprouting new little branches already. I thought roses in January in Paso Robles were usually more dormant than that.

Pope Francis has also noticed global warming. Tuesday’s Tribune reported that he plans to release a statement this summer about the environment and global warming. It will be a formal statement called an encyclical. He and his advisers are working on it now.

Its contents are still a secret, but the pope gave a little taste of it last week at a news conference in the Philippines. He said global warming is “mostly” man-made.

The news story said the encyclical won‘t be finished for a few months, but conservative critics are already panning it. Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation said, “The pope has allied himself with the far left.”

But U.S. government scientists also say the Earth’s temperature continues to rise. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said so last Friday. It was in Saturday’s Tribune.

The two agencies agreed that 2014 was Earth’s hottest year since world-temperature recordkeeping began 135 years ago.

Other climate scientists also agreed that our home planet is overheating. One of them is Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University. She said, “The globe is warmer now than it has been in the last 100 years and more likely in at least 5,000 years. Any wisps of doubt that human activities are at fault are now gone with the wind.”

And climate scientist Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M University agreed. He said some people claim the Earth’s temperature has stopped rising and hasn’t risen in 18 years. But those claims should end, he said, because of last year’s record-breaking high temperature.

I look forward to the release the pope’s encyclical on the environment and global warming. But if he says global warming is real, I fear he’ll have trouble changing some minds.

Some people don’t believe global warming is caused by human activities. They believe any efforts to restrict those activities are unjustified. Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation said, “The pope has embraced an ideology that would make people poorer and less free.”

And as for me, I believe people do cause global warming and that it makes us poorer and less free.

This story was originally published January 22, 2015 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Signs of global warming sprout in Paso Robles backyard."