Rain on the ripening tangerines

Rain on the ripening tangerines. Although there are variations on when some sorts of tangerines ripen, generally a sight like this in Panama identifies the time as December, before the rains stop but as the tangerines are starting to get a bit of orange color to their skins.

We are told by meteorologists and climatologists that we're into a fairly strong La Niña phenomenon, which will give us a rainy dry season this time around.

The classic sign that rainy season is over and we're into dry season --- other than the lack of rain and rather cloudless skies --- is when the wind shifts and starts blowing steadily out of the north.

The more frequent La Niña and El Niño events are one of the many signs of a global climate change that's underway. Reasonable scientists argue about what causes are primarily responsible, but leave it to religious fanatics and the creepiest of political demagogues to deny that the planet is warming and that many changes are following from that.

The current Panamanian government is part of the shrinking global political faction that's in denial, giving us their assurances that the thawing of the Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean across the top of North America won't mean new competition for the Panama Canal anytime soon and making development plans for coastal areas and otherwise without taking a probable rise in sea levels into account.

Those questions, however, are the easy ones. Far more difficult will be planning for what climate change will mean for our agricultural, fisheries and ecotourism sectors. Very likely it will mean that Panama will need to change some of the crops it grows in order to optimize farm productions under altered rainfall and temperature conditions. Very likely it will mean that we will be presented with a different mix of agricultural pests and communicable diseases. Very likely it will mean that the mixes of wildlife in our forests and coral reefs will undergo some big changes.

But for now, the tangerines are still ripening in December, and we ought to get some relief from the heaviest rains in a few days.

Photo by Eric Jackson

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