The Scariest Halloween… « It’s Getting Hot In Here

Would be one without pumpkins at all! That frightening prospect may not be that far away for some areas, as pumpkin farmers and pumpkin lovers across the United States saw a terrifying season, with many farmers suffering losses of more than 30 – 50 percent of their crops.

While pumpkin production has been decreasing since 2005, the impacts of climate change mean that the pumpkins will continue to suffer! Climate change models show that many patterns of moisture movement will be intensified, which would make dry areas even drier and make wet areas even wetter.

Pumpkins just can’t handle the heat, the Associated Press reports, “Hot, dry weather causes pumpkins to produce too many male blossoms and too few female ones. Farmers also can blame drought for scads of small pumpkins as well as lighter weights because of a lack of water.”

But increases in extreme weather events also mean that the old adage — when it rains, it pours — will be correct even more frequently. And the heavy rains that flooded pumpkin fields in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, caused entire crops of pumpkins to rot.

Boyd Meadows, a pumpkin farmer in West Virginia, was quoted to say: “I think that anywhere that anybody had irrigation, they got a lot of pumpkins,” Meadows said. “Anybody that did it just planting the pumpkins and depending on Mother Nature to give them water, got a very, very poor crop, if any.”

But relying on energy-intensive (not to mention aquifer depleting) irrigation or importing pumpkins from regions that did receive adequate rainfall doesn’t seem to be the solution! That’s just what The West Virginia Pumpkin Festival had to do — in order to maintain their event, they imported pumpkins from across the United States. Such pumpkin transport means more fossil fuels burned in trucks and planes, while others are replacing live pumpkins with plastic replicas which also uses large amounts of energy to produce.

The USDA estimates that pumpkin production in the United States is a $100 million industry, yet another season like this one may not allow the pumpkin industry to make it out alive…

So without anymore bad Halloween puns, here’s hoping that you’re able to find a local pumpkin, wherever you are, and that you have a very happy Halloween!

About Caroline

Caroline is passionate about ensuring an safe climate future for all peoples on the planet, and believes that many solutions already exist to address poverty, increase equity, and improve environmental quality while also reducing climate change. This year, she's working with the global youth climate movement to ensure that youth voices at COP15 are coming from all over the world and that the youth voice is not only heard but seen through positive action. A French-American, but also a global citizen, Caroline grew up in Connecticut and has worked in six continents on climate related issues, and now lives, works with, and loves the Indian Youth Climate Network. She directs the Climate Solutions Project, an initiative to create, communicate and celebrate youth-led and grassroots solutions to climate change, in order to scale up these solutions and build the confidence necessary to ensure a great deal in Copenhagen. On the side, Caroline likes making climate art - rapping about climate action, photographing disappearing flowers, building sustainable dance floors, working with filmmakers to document youth initiatives worldwide, and creating dance flashmobs to spread the message of 350!