Global Warming And Other Observations

Note: The following text has been taken from a letter from Pete and Bob Hartt, owners of the Davis Hill Company.

We are trusting that everyone made it safely into the new year and hoping 2007 brings with it the best for all. The Vermont winter got off to a slow start with warm temperatures and no snow for the better part of December and the first couple weeks of January.

It was so warm in early January that the sap started to run, and I am unfortunately not talking about my New Year's resolution to get out and get more exercise, but the maple syruping kind of sap (though we both move slowly at this point in the season). It raised the usual questions and concerns about global warming, including one conservative commentator who suggested that even if global warming were a fact (and he wasn't willing to concede that), we should embrace it and enjoy the benefits of lower heating costs and longer growing seasons up here.

We're not so sure it's overall a good idea to think of significant global climate change as being only beneficial. We're also not sure how much we can do about the worldwide heat-up. So far our best line of thought is that, to the extent that climate change is being hurried along by human activities, we ought to try to limit those activities and let nature take its course (even though that's how I ended up married for the first time).

We'd like to talk more, but we've got to go outside now and shovel. Winter, you see, has a way of coming no matter what level of hot air those who talk about global warming release into the atmosphere. And the sugaring season up here will likely be as usual sometime in late March. Of course, if any of you want to see the sap run a little earlier and are headed up this way, just let us know, and Pete will get out the sweat pants and running galoshes.