Clean Energy Springfield

The Washington Post has a shortish article about how species respond to climate change. It's focused on Maryland, and notes that the Baltimore Oriole is shifting northward, while Louisiana's brown pelican is starting to show up. It touches a little bit on the troubles that other species may have--birds are relatively mobile, after all. Can plants shift northward as quickly? They can certainly shift in response to natural climate changes (and in fact, Illinois is a prime example of those shifts, as it floats between forest and prairie land depending on temperature and precipitation changes), but manmade warming is going to happen a lot faster than that.

This reminds of something I think would be great to have: an indicator garden. Long-time horticulturalists can see climate change in their records, as their flowers bud and bloom earlier. And we know that species will shift around in response to climate. Why not set aside a little portion of one of parks to serve as a publicly maintained climate indicator garden: connect it to records of when the species within it typically bloom and where different species are native to, and with just a little management we'll be able to see climate change happen on a year to year basis. This would be a phenomenal education tool, as well as providing a natural amenity.

I'm going to task this to the Illinois Native Plant Society.