nicole42n7: Money Making

Making maple syrup in a hotter world

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:59 AM Thursday, Dec 30, 2010

It's hard to take big-picture global temperature increases and bring them down to a personal level—partly because of that confusion between weather and climate, and partly because scientists simply have a better understanding what is very likely to happen in an averaged-out global system, than they have of how changes in that global system are likely to affect your backyard.

I like the way Climate Wisconsin is trying to bridge that gap. First, they use interactive visuals to show the local symptoms of climate change, like rising average temperatures and fewer days of ice cover of Wisconsin lakes. Then, they connect those symptoms to Wisconsin life. If these trends continue, what impact will they have on things like fishing, forestry, farming and, yes, the making of maple syrup.

It's a hard line to walk. The family featured in this video has recently experienced some of the worst years for making maple syrup in four generations. But, because weather isn't climate, next year could be better for them, even as the climate, overall, continues to warm. At the same time, though, climate change is likely to have long-term impacts on where and how well sugar maples can grow—and when, and for how long, their sap runs in spring.

I think this video and the related essay do a better-than-average job of making that distinction. This family won't be out of business next year. But, over time, climate change is very likely to make this work harder for them. The harder it gets, Wisconsin traditions associated with maple syrup making will become less common—and the 5-million-dollar syrup industry will bring less money to the state.

Also, I just finished re-reading Little House in the Big Woods, and it's fun to see how the process of maple syrup production has, and hasn't, changed since Grandpa Ingalls threw a sugaring-off party at his Wisconsin cabin in the late 1860s. Check out the taps they hammer into the maples. They look just like the Little House illustrations, but instead of draining into wooden buckets, the sap now flows into plastic bags.

Thanks to agroman for Submitterating!

Hell's Kitchen continues to be a highly desirable neighborhood for many New Yorkers, but living in the HeKi (our coinage&msash;you're welcome Corcoran) isn't without sacrifice. Local residents who don't have washer/dryers in their buildings are finding it increasingly annoying to get their laundry done! One of the neighborhood's last laundromats, on 53rd Street and Ninth Avenue, recently closed, leaving behind, the Post reports, "a mile-long, laundry-less desert between Eighth and Tenth Avenues." This heavy news comes on the heels of Second Wave Laundry, the largest Laundromat in the neighborhood on 55th Street and Ninth Avenue, closing because the landlord threatened to raise the rent from $14,000 to $20,000 a month and demanded an $80,000 security deposit.

Now Hell's Kitchen locals are throwing "champagne and laundry parties" in apartments with washing machines. Others simply do their laundry in the sink. For this very reason, Councilwoman Gale Brewer has introduced a resolution to give tax breaks to owner-operated city businesses. "This is the most basic challenge to the crisis of the lack of mom-and-pop stores in the city," says Brewer. "It's beyond frustrating." And Christine Gorman, president of the West 55th Block Association, tells the tabloid, "The Laundromats are fleeing our area. The services in our neighborhood are disappearing. There's rumors that the Laundromat is going to become a Citibank." At least that's welcome news for anybody in Hell's Kitchen who needs some money laundered.

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