If there’s a single lesson for early 21st century life on the
planet Earth, it’s this: everything connects. That’s true
whether we’re looking at the global economic system, in which
sickness is now spreading from the euro zone to China to a
wobbly U.S., or the global environment, as we can see in a new
study showing the Arctic rapidly responding to climate change by
sprouting sudden trees in the tundra. Researchers in Britain and
Finland studied an area of 38,600 sq. mi. (100,000 sq km) in
what’s known as the northwestern Eurasian tundra, which
stretches from western Siberia to Finland. Surveys of vegetation
in the region using both satellite data and local observations
from reindeer herders showed that in 8% to 15% of the territory,
willow and alder shrubs had grown into trees over 6.5 ft. (2 m)
tall over the past 30 to 40 years. That’s a period of time when
temperatures in the Arctic have increased significantly, even
faster than in other parts of the planet. As Andrew Revkin of
Dot Earth puts it, warming h