I stopped using the weather app midway through June. Instead, when I woke up, I would see how damp the house was, running my hands along the sheets on the bed, touching the towels in the bathroom to see if they had dried yet. Still damp. I’d turn on the dehumidifier on the way to the kitchen before finally glancing outside – it was still raining.
Staff at Jillson’s Farm & Sugarhouse in Sabattus planted tomato seedlings with a tractor last week while other workers tilled up weeds. The wet weather has made farming especially challenging this season. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
Last month brought above-average rain to Maine, 5.68 inches in Portland. It wasn’t just Maine that was swallowed in bouts of fog and hours of flood-threatening precipitation. New Hampshire and parts of Australia and China experienced above-average precipitation for June as well.
I don’t like rain. My curls become constantly matted, I’m more tired and it’s harder to get outside. And after a long, dark winter, another month of constantly scanning the ever-gray sky for the sun grows old. But this month of rain has also been one of the forms of PR for climate change, forcing every conversation to circle back to the weather.
Nonstop rain has meant nonstop conversations about, well, this damn rain. I’ve talked about the rain with friends who are artists, policymakers, accountants, salespeople, behavioral specialists and public relations professionals. I’ve talked about the rain with baristas and people who vote red, with people who went to Ivy League schools and blue-collar professionals. Everyone has had something important to share about the rain – the way it makes them feel, how different it is from when they were a kid. More than one person has just uttered the words “climate change,” followed by a nervous laugh.
Speaking of rain, new research indicates that the Northeast will consistently get more precipitation, likely in the form of rain. This new research published this spring, by Dartmouth scientist Jonathan Winters and his colleagues shows that the rain is here, transforming New England weather and how we think about the seasons.
In my work as an ecologist, I am constantly reading and thinking about climate change over various timesteps – six months, one year, 15 years, 100 years. But the conversations that I have had nearly every day this month have given me hope that data cannot. Talking about the weather and climate brings a newer, essential awareness. People know their backyards and the changes that they’re seeing. And they care.
The attention that rain is getting – this dominating, frustrating, summer rain – allows for more necessary conversations about climate change, and in turn, our relationship with this human-caused phenomenon. It humanizes climate change.
As a scientist, I do believe that our work is critical to fighting and mitigating climate change – but we can’t carry the burden alone. Support and engagement from the public is key to finding and enacting solutions. The first step can be talking about the rain and “June gloom” – the way it makes us feel and the way it affects our daily lives.
Studies have shown that talking about climate change with the people you know – neighbors, grandparents, friends – encourages more accessible conversations. People are more likely to trust their friends and family and are more inclined to consider the science behind climate change. As a 2018 Nature Conservancy report that gives tips for communicating about climate warns, “We can’t solve a problem that we can’t talk about.”
I hope the rain stays away for at least a bit this summer and allows us to do all the things that make a Maine summer enviable and special. If it returns, however, we’ll have plenty to talk about.
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