By Maggie Fechtman
Yesterday I went to a Christmas tree farm to cut down my Christmas tree, as I do every year. However, when my family and I arrived at the farm, they told us that we may find difficulty finding a tree taller than 5ft and has full branches. They were experiencing their first Christmas tree shortage.
One of the family members who own the farm greeted us and explained that the weather over the past 7 years has not been ideal for growing Christmas trees, which is why there are so few mature Christmas trees. They explained that the increased rains and flooding have hurt their trees. This is directly related to climate change.
The effects of climate change have already begun to be felt in Pennsylvania as there has been an increase in the amount of precipitation and an increase in temperature. The evaporated ice is moving from the Arctic down to North America in the form of precipitation.
Although climate change was the reason for this farm’s tree shortage, other local farms are experiencing tree shortages because of the 2008 recession. Farmers “sold off land and planted fewer trees during and after the 2008 recession.” (Inverse)
Even though the weather is hurting our local business, this does not mean we will not have living Christmas trees. This just means living trees will become more expensive as they will have to be imported rather than cut down by hand.
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