Images of orange groves and Spanish-themed hotels with palm tree gardens filled countless pamphlets and articles promoting Southern California and Florida in the late 19th century, promising escape from winter's reach.
Yeah, weather patterns are shifting everywhere. The thing to remember is that “climate” is a measurement of weather over time.
Humans can adapt easier than plants to climate change - we can move to different locations while plants are basically stuck unless we humans relocate them. The growing zones where people can grow different fruits/vegetables/herbs is changing. Sometimes too rapidly and even humans can’t keep track of what they can/should grow (and when to plant it). It’s now getting too hot in some regions for even tropical trees/plants to grow using photosynthesis (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/leaves-tropical-forests-photosynthesis-heat-limit) .
So while the local weather may be feeling different and you could possibly start growing different plants in your region, there’s no guarantee that the weather patterns will be the same in five years.
In my own region people are pushing growing zones, growing exotic tropical plants outdoors most of the year then protecting them from harsher weather. Heck I found a guy who is successfully growing a slightly cold-tolerant variety of edible bananas (called blue java) in North Carolina!! No way that would have been possible 100 years ago. Or another example - Cocoa Florida was too cold to grow cocoa beans back when the town was originally founded, but the climate has now warmed up enough that people are starting to grow real cocoa trees in Cocoa! hahaha. (yes, I geek out about weird sh!t like zone-pushing edible plants lol).
As I keep reminding people “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored”
Yeah, weather patterns are shifting everywhere. The thing to remember is that “climate” is a measurement of weather over time.
Humans can adapt easier than plants to climate change - we can move to different locations while plants are basically stuck unless we humans relocate them. The growing zones where people can grow different fruits/vegetables/herbs is changing. Sometimes too rapidly and even humans can’t keep track of what they can/should grow (and when to plant it). It’s now getting too hot in some regions for even tropical trees/plants to grow using photosynthesis (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/leaves-tropical-forests-photosynthesis-heat-limit) .
So while the local weather may be feeling different and you could possibly start growing different plants in your region, there’s no guarantee that the weather patterns will be the same in five years.
In my own region people are pushing growing zones, growing exotic tropical plants outdoors most of the year then protecting them from harsher weather. Heck I found a guy who is successfully growing a slightly cold-tolerant variety of edible bananas (called blue java) in North Carolina!! No way that would have been possible 100 years ago. Or another example - Cocoa Florida was too cold to grow cocoa beans back when the town was originally founded, but the climate has now warmed up enough that people are starting to grow real cocoa trees in Cocoa! hahaha. (yes, I geek out about weird sh!t like zone-pushing edible plants lol).
As I keep reminding people “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored”