We Change with Them
9 images Created 24 Feb 2022
"We Change with Them" explores shifting ecosystem dynamics resulting from climate change in the Gulf of Maine. I began this series as artist-in-residence for the Mount Desert Island Historical Society. It is part of the Landscape of Change project, a joint initiative with Acadia National Park, Schoodic Institute, the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, College of the Atlantic, and A Climate to Thrive, and will be published in Chebacco, the annual journal of the MDI Historical Society, in spring 2022.
The images layer cyanotype, drawings, and data to tell the story of climate-related phenomena on Mount Desert Island, Maine. The project title refers to a sixteenth-century English proverb, “Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis” (All things change and we change with them).
2021 was the year that climate change hit home for me. Every month I noticed some local event that could be traced back to a change that had been years in the making. I thought I understood climate change, having heard about it for most of my life, but the complexity of this project was humbling. As I started teasing apart the network of intertwined consequences, I frequently thought I was looking at a single factor but always found layers of related issues and incremental changes that lead to what felt like an abrupt and seismic shift.
In each drawing, the horizontal axis represents time. Duration is limited by the data available. The vertical axis represents the rate of change for variables affecting each phenomenon: increasing temperature, decreasing pH, etc. All data in each image covers the same period of time, and all data is from Maine. The drawings show the amount and direction of change that has occurred for each variable during that period.
The lack of data for many of these questions was frustrating. We have excellent records of climate and of population for commercially harvested species like clams and shrimp, and very little data for ticks and green crabs, only anecdotal evidence of enormous population increases and a general sense that the damn things are everywhere.
Many of these events are connected to seasonal changes - not just the upward trends of precipitation or warmth, but the time of year when they happen and whether they coincide with migrations or breeding seasons. For example, although annual precipitation has increased by 6 inches since 1895, an unusually dry spring in 2021 lowered water levels at a critical time for the alewife migration. Even though enough rain fell later in the year to even out the annual average, it didn’t help the alewives.
A full list of resources and data used for this project is included below.
A schedule of events and talks centered on the series will be posted on the MDI Historical Society website: http://mdihistory.org/wechangewiththem
The images layer cyanotype, drawings, and data to tell the story of climate-related phenomena on Mount Desert Island, Maine. The project title refers to a sixteenth-century English proverb, “Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis” (All things change and we change with them).
2021 was the year that climate change hit home for me. Every month I noticed some local event that could be traced back to a change that had been years in the making. I thought I understood climate change, having heard about it for most of my life, but the complexity of this project was humbling. As I started teasing apart the network of intertwined consequences, I frequently thought I was looking at a single factor but always found layers of related issues and incremental changes that lead to what felt like an abrupt and seismic shift.
In each drawing, the horizontal axis represents time. Duration is limited by the data available. The vertical axis represents the rate of change for variables affecting each phenomenon: increasing temperature, decreasing pH, etc. All data in each image covers the same period of time, and all data is from Maine. The drawings show the amount and direction of change that has occurred for each variable during that period.
The lack of data for many of these questions was frustrating. We have excellent records of climate and of population for commercially harvested species like clams and shrimp, and very little data for ticks and green crabs, only anecdotal evidence of enormous population increases and a general sense that the damn things are everywhere.
Many of these events are connected to seasonal changes - not just the upward trends of precipitation or warmth, but the time of year when they happen and whether they coincide with migrations or breeding seasons. For example, although annual precipitation has increased by 6 inches since 1895, an unusually dry spring in 2021 lowered water levels at a critical time for the alewife migration. Even though enough rain fell later in the year to even out the annual average, it didn’t help the alewives.
A full list of resources and data used for this project is included below.
A schedule of events and talks centered on the series will be posted on the MDI Historical Society website: http://mdihistory.org/wechangewiththem
![“Ticks + Lyme”<br />
Lyme disease is caused by a bacterial spirochete and is transmitted by the bite of a deer<br />
tick. Deer ticks like rainy, humid summers and warm winters. Maine used to have freezing weather into the early spring, which killed a portion of the ticks. Shorter winters and less snow mean more ticks, and the extended autumn gives the ticks more time to actively look for hosts before winter. The image shows air temperature and the rate of Lyme disease cases in Maine between 1990 and 2019, the spirochete, and the ticks. [Maine only began tracking Lyme disease cases in 2001 – a marker of how quickly it has spread.]](https://www.jenniferbooher.com/img-get2/I0000qghdADDWi5M/fit=180x180/fill=/g=G0000To_f16Sn3zI/I0000qghdADDWi5M.jpg)
