Global Climate Change and Asheville, NC – First Impressions: Taking the Temperature

Catawba Creek, Pisgah National Forest, Old Fort, NC

As I write this blog post at 4:30PM on December 29^th, I am comfortably sitting outside our rental house in the mountains of North Carolina; in shorts without a shirt.   Today’s high temp was 72⁰; the average high for this day is 47⁰.  As of today, the December temperatures in Asheville have averaged 11.6⁰ above the historical daily averages for this month.  I was never a math-wiz, but I’m pretty sure 11.6⁰ is a lot higher than the 3.6⁰ upper boundary temperature rise recommended by the IPCC and agreed to in Paris.

We have been living in Asheville for two months now and it really is a wonderful adult playground with many beautiful cascading creeks and rivers.  During our time here I have hiked and biked a lot,  attended the UU Church, two other churches, a Sierra Club meeting, several meetings at the University of North Carolina- Asheville, frequented a few pubs, restaurants, grocery stores, neighbor’s houses, and various other public and private establishments.

I have been observing and occasionally talking with folks about things related to climate change.  My tiny sample size suggests that when it comes to climate change, moderate to liberal leaning middle to upper-middle class white people in Asheville are no different from this demographic in DC/Northern Virginia, Portland, OR, or Northern California. 

This fairly homogeneous group seems to view and, most importantly, act on the challenges of climate change in the following way: a tiny percentage have certainty on the threat posed and are giving it their all, a fraction more are true believers and engaged, still more believe but feel no urgency, about the same number pay some attention but remain skeptical, a few less are highly skeptical and a small percentage of those actively dispute assertions of the magnitude of the issue. 

Together all of these people added up to maybe 40% of this financially and socially capable cohort with the remaining 60% basically saying something along these lines: 

"Hum, yes, now that you mention it, it does seem likely that humans may have influenced the weather which, by the way, has been really nice lately don’t you think?  I sure hope that it doesn’t get too much warmer before somebody figures out a way to turn down the thermostat.  Would love to chat more about this issue, but I hear  my…. neighbor, wife, class, game, stove, garden, beer, movie, play, book, fence, car, child, parent, dog, cat, lawn, bill, boss, hiking group, etc.…… calling me.  Well, good luck to you.”

Roger Helm, Ph.D. Biological Ecology

FACS Founding Member 

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