Rating Qualities

8
Scientific
Engaging
Inspiring

A Hole in the Wind

A Climate Scientist's Bicycle Journey Across the United States
David Goodrich | Pegasus Books © 2017

Retired climate scientist David Goodrich biked diverse trails that reflect the history of the United
States. He weaves stories about these trails with his personal experience to highlight the growing
emergency of climate change. Pondering western movement into the frontier, the paths slaves
followed in search of freedom and remembrances of the genocide of Native Americans, Goodrich
goes beyond theory and paints vivid portraits of places and people. He discusses how rising
seas, tornadoes, drought, wildfires and diminishing species affect them. Goodrich’s inspiring,
picaresque tale will intrigue the climate curious, and fans of a good road trip.

Take-Aways
• Retired climate scientist David Goodrich toured the United States on a bicycle to discover
firsthand evidence of climate change.
• 97% of climate scientists confirm that climate change is real.
• Weather can vary by 30oF (17oC) day to day. Climate is the average global temperature over
time.
• CO2 is the primary gas produced through human activity that is responsible for accelerated
warming.
• As CO2 increases, temperatures rise, which expands oceans and erodes coastlines.
• Current CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest in 800,000 years.
• Fires and the mountain pine beetle decimate western forests.
• More than 1,700 miles of waters in Pennsylvania no longer have any fish.
• Leaving fossil fuel reserves in the ground is the best way to ensure that humans don’t burn
them.
• Renewable energy is fast becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuel-based energy.

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 Summary

Rising Temperatures, Rising Seas

David Goodrich, a retired climate scientist, dipped his bicycle’s tire into the Atlantic Ocean
as a ceremonial beginning to his cross-country bike tour. Months later he would dip his
tire into the Pacific on the Oregon coast. In between, he averaged biking 56 miles (90 km)
per day. His main route was the TransAmerica Trail that closely parallels the route of
explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Goodrich sought to reach a better understanding
of the risks of doing nothing about climate change. He set up 17 presentations for a variety of
audiences, but he found people would rather not talk about it, despite the evidence all around
them.

“Climate change is for real; things people do are largely responsible for the global
warming trend; and there are solutions.”

Goodrich’s first stop was coastal Delaware, where rising sea levels are decimating barrier islands.
He found that the coastline in Prime Hook had eroded severely since the 2008 storm season.
Plummeting migration means that wading bird species proliferate. Locals don’t mind cleaning up
after intense and frequent storms; only the increase in flooding is giving them pause.

“As I saw in Yellowstone, with just a few months of growing season each year in the
northern Rockies, regrowth is measured in decades.”

Ecosystems change as sea levels rise and salt water mixes with fresh water. Warmer temperatures
expand ocean waters as melting glaciers add water volume to the seas. Increased CO2 acidifies the
oceans, threatening coral reefs and creatures with shells, such as crabs, which are the cornerstone
of the Chesapeake Bay’s commercial fishery. Agricultural runoff creates dead zones that choke off
oxygen in the water, further threatening marine species that local people rely on for a living.

“Trees in many campgrounds have been removed, so there is no shade, while remaining
trees have been treated with insecticide.”

Climate change denial stymies state legislatures. For example, the Virginia General Assembly
wouldn’t allow a scientific study to use the phrase “sea level rise.” Oceanographer Larry Atkinson
predicts flooding on the National Mall in Washington, DC, 120 miles from the coast, if sea
levels rise five feet. Coastal states should plan a strategic retreat from the water’s edge. Climate
scientists, who deploy myriad instruments to measure climate effects, have extensive data which
have convinced 97% of the world’s scientists that the Earth’s temperature is rising.

“China also has a rapidly expanding solar industry, and they would be more than
pleased to have a greater global market share.”

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 They confirm that human activity – which produces greenhouse gases, most predominantly CO2 –
accelerates warming. Curbing CO2 is the primary way humans can slow climate change. Carbon
dioxide heats the air, expands the oceans and melts ice. Current CO2 levels in the atmosphere are
the highest in 800,000 years.

Fossil Fuel Extraction and Fracking

Goodrich rode his bike through western Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains – fracking country.
The Marcellus Shale lies below the mountains. Oil companies began to exploit this natural gas
bed in 2001. Fracking involves pumping enormous volumes of water mixed with chemicals
and sand into deep wells to retrieve pockets of natural gas. It’s a 24-hour operation. Diesel
trucks provide pumping power and carry water to and from injection sites. This nonstop heavy
traffic degrades local roads. Frackers store toxic wastewater in large pools and haul some to deep
mining pits in Ohio.

“If the price of gas were increased to $8 a gallon, it would still be cheap compared to the
cost of adapting to this new world of altered climate.”

Fracking-related chemicals leech into the ground, the water and the air. Local residents report
headaches, nosebleeds and respiratory issues. In 2003, more than 2,000 fracking companies
publicly listed most of the previously secret chemicals they use. Natural gas production drove
gas prices down, but the boom ended by 2016. Natural gas adds only half as much CO2 to the
atmosphere as coal, but the methane that fracking releases negates its benefits. As natural
gas production increased, methane levels grew by more than 30%. Methane is a more lethal
greenhouse gas than CO2.

“Across the West, fires have been increasing in size for the last several decades.”

The Yough valley shows the effects of a previous fossil fuel boom: coal. The forest
overgrows tapped-out mines that leak acidifying drainage into waterways. More than 1,700 miles
of water in Pennsylvania have no fish. Ohio allows frackers to dump wastewater into deep wells
that link to earthquakes.

Drier Prairies and Shifting Seasons

Day-to-day weather can fluctuate by 30°F (17°C). Climate is the average over time. The difference
in temperature between now and the last Ice Age is only 9oF (5oC). The Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a 4oF to 8oF (2.2°C to 4.4°C) increase by 2100.

“Sea level at the end of the century depends very much on the level of greenhouse gases
that we put into the atmosphere today.”

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 Indiana’s first public infrastructure was the National Road, which Thomas Jefferson championed.
Now much of it is US Route 40, which Goodrich follows. Biking the road was a slog in the
face of intense, unrelenting winds of 50 miles per hour. Warm air absorbs more moisture and
supercharges the water cycle, resulting in heavier downpours in the Midwest. Wind and warm
moist air combine to form super-tornadoes, such as the category EF5 that killed 161 people in
Joplin. In 2011, the TransAm Trail in Kansas had only one wind farm, despite the strong wind in
that area. Now there are 11, with eight more in the works.

“Glacier National Park, known as the Crown of the Continent, is ground zero for climate
change in the United States. The namesake ice is disappearing.”

In Monowi, Nebraska, population one, the mayor and sole resident, Elsie, offer
travelers refreshment at the Monowi Tavern. Young people left Monowi to find jobs. Mechanized
agriculture displaced their farm work. Farmers worry that the Ogallala Aquifer, their irrigation
source, will run dry.

Prairie grasses have deep roots that withstand cycles of drought and fire natural to the plains.
Farmers transformed the landscape with less-hardy crops, but now they are regrowing strips of
prairie grass to protect their land. This is the heart of the Dust Bowl; in the 1930s, years of drought
led to rolling dust storms and starvation.

“We’re creating a new era dominated by man-made climate change. Geologists have a
name for it: the Anthropocene.”

The conditions that create superstorms – the air holding onto water – evaporate ground moisture.
This creates droughts and a parched environment ripe for wild fires. These conditions cripple the
yields overextended local farmers hope for from their crops. Yet these farmers concern themselves
most with the price of oil. Any climate change policy would increase fossil fuel prices. Farmers feel
the fuel industry’s costs should reflect the toll it inflicts on the planet.

“To slow down global warming, fossil fuel companies must keep 80% of their product in
the ground, something they surely won’t do voluntarily.”

Goodrich biked through South Dakota’s Badlands, where, in an earlier century, Lakota Native
Americans retreated from the encroaching frontier rush. The United States forced the Lakota onto
the worst lands in the territory after it took the Black Hills from them. Despite treaties, in the late
1880s, the government cut all promised subsidies to the Lakota. Convinced by prophecies that a
Ghost Dance, a form of nonviolent protest, would protect them from harm and that one day the
Earth would swallow non-believers, a tribe led by Short Bull isolated themselves on Stronghold
Table, a hard-to-reach Badlands butte. Respected Lakota leader Sitting Bull planned to join them,
but was killed at his home in Standing Rock. Another Lakota group following Chief Big Foot to the
Stronghold were massacred at Wounded Knee in 1890. In 2016, at Standing Rock, activists came
together again in nonviolent protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

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 Dwindling Glaciers and Snowpack 

Goodrich lived in Colorado in the 1970s. When he arrived there on his bike in 2011, he saw terrible
differences. The devastation wrought by the mountain pine beetle, which kills lodgepole pine
forests, marked Cameron Pass. In the past, winter cold killed the beetle larvae and contained their
damage. Warmer temperatures mean the beetles spread, bringing devastation. Dead trees cover
vast mountains and provide fuel for forest fires. Fire season is now 78 days longer than it was in
1970. The beetle hit Yellowstone National Park hard and continues its northward migration to
Canada.

“It is simply not feasible to protect more than a small fraction of the coast. Major
property losses are inevitable, most backed by taxpayers through government flood
insurance.”

Glacier National Park shows the effects of climate change. Teton Glacier lost 20% of its mass
since the 1980s. The park had 150 glaciers in 1850; it now has 25. The diminishing glaciers and
melting snow provide fresh water for much of Wyoming and Idaho. Regrowing devastated forests
will require reforestation programs. Carbon uptake by forests offsets the CO2 that human activity
unleashes, but as North America’s forests dwindle, so does this mitigation.

“Sailing on without a course correction – ‘business as usual’ – leads us toward more

warming, more sea level rise, more Dust Bowls.”

The view along the road to Glacier National Park shows metal contamination from the
local mineral extraction. Bunker Hill Mine was a local job provider and community booster for
decades. Its leaders maintained a good relationship with local residents while discharging toxic
waste into their river and air. In 1974, tests showed local school children had high levels of lead in
their blood. The mine closed in 1981 and is now a Superfund cleanup site.

In Oregon, warming temperatures turn what used to be snow into rain, which more quickly
melts the remaining snow. Earlier spring melts mean water runoff volume peaks earlier, though
farmers need more water in the drier summers. Rushing rivers provide hydropowered electricity
regionally. Competition for fresh water continues to increase as maintaining the water flow
becomes a more significant issue.

“Turning the Ship”

Modern history offers a precedent for a global effort to reverse damage that human activity does
to the planet. In 1985, British scientist Joseph Farman informed the scientific community about
a hole developing in the ozone – the layer of the Earth’s atmosphere that protects the planet from
ultraviolet radiation. Researchers traced the depletion to human-made chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs). In 1987, the world’s nations agreed to stop using these compounds. The ozone layer is

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 recovering and will be back to full strength by mid-century. Global cooperation in the face of
climate change is possible.

Abraham Lincoln established the National Academy of Sciences to encourage scientific debate
outside of government. In 2001, George W. Bush charged the Academy with confirming
whether climate change was happening. Many saw the probe as another delaying tactic. The
Academy’s report was clear: Temperatures are rising due to human activities. In 2013, the IPCC
issued a statement of global consensus, calling for reductions in greenhouse gases.

The first step in any recovery is to admit the reality of the problem. Humanity can’t begin solving
the problem of climate change without acknowledging that it exists. The most effective thing
humans can do to turn the climate change ship around is to limit use of fossil fuels. This will be a
strenuous cure. Fossil fuel companies will never self-regulate. Government must step in. Ordinary
people can make using fossil fuels a losing proposition.

Standing Rock

Determined nonviolent protest at Standing Rock swayed public opinion to stop the construction
of a natural gas pipeline under an important freshwater source. Activists including Native
Americans and veterans came together to oppose the Dakota Access fracking pipeline scheduled
for construction through sacred Indian lands and underneath Lake Oahe, a tribal reservoir.
Climate activists know that carbon needs to be kept in the ground. The Army Corps of Engineers
eventually denied the permit needed to build the pipeline under the lake. Nonviolent protest won
the day. Now, President Donald Trump’s administration has reversed the Corps’ decision.

The Paris Agreement

Climate change agreements between the US and China in 2014 led to the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The representatives of 195 countries agreed to pursue limiting global temperature rise to less than
3.6oF (2°C). Critics said the CO2 reductions weren’t sufficient, but the Agreement is a solid start
for global cooperation to lower the impact of CO2. Since then, the Trump administration, to world
leaders’ shock, voided America’s Paris commitment.

Momentum is growing for reductions in CO2 output. Coal is no longer competitive with natural
gas and renewable energy sources take up a larger share of the energy market and are increasingly
cost competitive. Globally and locally, environmentalists push for institutions to stop investing
in fossil-based energy companies. Renewable energy costs are dropping and it is less costly
than fossil fuel in some countries. A Stanford University study of all 50 US states lays out a plan
for 100% reliance on renewable energy by 2050. Incentives will prompt businesses to join the
effort. It’s challenging, but achievable, like a bike ride across America.

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 About the Author
Retired climate scientist David Goodrich formerly ran the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s Climate Observation and Monitoring Program.

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