If only you Japanese folks hadn’t been driving fossil fueled vehicles back during Dark Ages they wouldn’t have seen the trees bloom so early
How climate change is thwarting travellers’ cherry blossom plans
In Japan, the rare and beautiful 10-day cherry blossom “front” is set to start 10 days earlier this year due to global warming. Here’s what travellers need to know.
Travellers who arrived in Tokyo in April 2023 to experience the city’s famous cherry tree petals were faced with quite a surprise: instead of blooming as forecast in late March, the pink sakura appeared 10 days earlier than predicted.
This was no freak occurrence: 2023 tied with 2020 and 2021 for a record-early bloom – the definitive earliest since scientific records began in 1953[1] , and earliest since 812, according to historical documents from Kyoto. According to experts, this trend points to a troublesome fact: we are overheating our planet at a frightening pace, and the early sakura are harbingers of more change to come.
Japan’s beloved four seasons are under threat altogether, says Yoshihiro Tachibana, professor of Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics from Japan’s Mie University. “If greenhouse gas reductions cannot be achieved, there is the possibility of cherry blossoms in February. All four seasons are warming. But spring warming is seeing the biggest rise, so the cherry blossom season tends to come earlier and earlier.”
This year, some forecast a start to the sakura season on par with the earliest recorded blooms, around 25 March. But when, exactly, the sacred blooms might appear is really anyone’s guess.
There’s some wiggle room in to when the Medieval Warm period started, but, 812 AD was still squarely in Dark Ages. Yet, they had massive early blooms? From what? What caused it? There were no fossil fueled vehicles. They weren’t burning tons of coal. No one was using electricity. They were not shipping goods on fossil fueled ships. Things change, except in Cult World. Having trees bloom earlier during a low level Holocene warm period is not a harbinger of Doom. Everything will be fine. We are not overheating our planet. Damned doomsday cult.
Read: Your Fault: Japanese Cherry Trees To Have Earliest Bloom Since 812AD »
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