Sep 29, 2016 3 min read

We awake now, in darkness, to the first cool mornings. After such a long, hot summer, they are long overdue.

For those of us who have witnessed the change of seasons many times, the first signs of autumn are especially welcome. This period of late September and early October is Southwestern Pennsylvania’s most pleasant: dry, visually splendid as maples burst into the color of flames, with warm afternoons and chilly evenings.

There is something reassuring in the approach of seasons. No matter how much change and disruption we experience in our everyday lives, the cycle of life – that rhythm of death and renewal – remains the same.

But this autumn seems different. Signs indicate that Nature might not be as consistent as we thought.

It’s nearly October and we’ve yet to come even close to a frost. The preceding year was the world’s warmest since records have been kept, and although it’s important not to confuse local weather with global warming, which is measured by average air and ocean temperatures around the world, it’s hard not to feel the connection here.

Leaves are falling already, but many of them are green, like the oak leaves attached to branches severed from limbs by the activity of summer’s cicadas.

Normally at this time, the silence of late September days is disturbed by the plop-plop-plop of black walnuts in their fragrant husks falling from their branches. They pound like hail when a stiff breeze blows, but this year most walnut trees are bare of fruit. It happens every so often.

Woolly bear caterpillars have begun to appear. The fuzzy worms have 13 segments of bristles colored either black or rusty brown. Folklore suggests the worms can predict winter weather: the more rusty the color, the milder the winter, the more black, the more severe the weather. This year, they’re all black.

Humans behave differently with the approach of fall, too, especially Americans every four years, during a presidential election campaign. We’ve become accustomed at this time to seeing bumper stickers and signs stuck in front yards as drivers and residents announce their allegiance to their candidate and party. This year, the stickers and signs attract our notice because there are so few of them. The reasons for this may be many. Perhaps people are already weary of the campaign, or maybe they are disinterested. More likely, people may be embarrassed to publicize for whom they will vote. These are, after all, the two most unpopular persons nominated by the major parties in modern times.

It may be, also, that as polarized a population as we’ve become, people are afraid to display their loyalties, afraid that the partisan nastiness of the internet and social media might lead to vandalism of their cars and homes or even to assault.

People change and the way they interact has changed, and Nature is changing, too, some of it to do with the effect on it of humans, now numbering over 7 billion.

Come November, we’ll have change in government, and we’ll witness the first signs of winter. The changes may not be welcome, but they are inevitable.