By Mary O’KEEFE

Fifty-seven years ago, Disney released the first animated film of “Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree.” All my kids loved Winnie the Pooh but my middle child was obsessed. She would cuddle with her stuffed Pooh toy and bring him to her many, many tea parties that she hosted for friends and her dolls. Pooh’s positive attitude melded easily with my daughter’s view of life. The Honey Pot was Pooh’s most happy place although for my daughter the honey pot happy place was math ­– it brought her as equal joy as honey did to Pooh.

When she sang “up, down, touch the ground” it put her in the mood to count. I cannot tell you how many times we counted the bumblebees in her favorite Pooh story. I soon realized that I too loved going to the Hundred Acre Wood with Pooh and his friends. I loved the philosophical view of any and all situations and, even though I related more to Eeyore, the Pooh philosophy is something I still refer to when the world weighs heavy on my shoulders.

My grandson has a map and toys of the Hundred Acre Wood. As we read stories and walk his Pooh characters around the map, I wondered what would the Hundred Acre Wood look like now? Would there be development? Would there be apartment buildings with balconies that looked over the pond? Would there be graffiti on Piglet’s tree house? Would there even be honey now that there are fewer bees?

The Hundred Acre Wood was actually based on Ashdown Forest in Sussex, England. In 2019 fire tore through the forest, destroying about 50 acres of the “Hundred Acre Wood.” In a report in the Smithsonian Magazine there had been two wildfires earlier in the year in Ashdown when a planned burning by volunteers went out of control. The fire was fueled by very dry vegetation … and it was a very blustery day.

In 2022, James Adler, Ashdown Forest chief executive, gave a talk titled “Ashdown Forest in a Warming World.” (I have put the link at the bottom of this article because it is worth the listen.) The way Adler explained climate change, its consequences and what the forest is doing to prepare for the changes is very clear. He approaches it as though he is reading a Winnie the Pooh story.

“At times this presentation is not an easy one. The world is not in a great state, we are not treating it well,” he said as he began the seminar.

He warned the audience that the information shared would be difficult to hear but there “is a message of hope.”      

The talk painted a picture of what we all know about human-caused climate change and how our life is changing because of our warming planet.

He shared positive stories of how so many people are planting trees to try to help the planet but warned there is still destruction occurring.

“If I leave you with one message [that is] we have to stop tropical deforestation now,” he said.

Adler spent some time talking about bees and how dangerous it is to lose these and other insects. He shared a photo of a Chinese fruit farmer who was pollinating his trees by hand because of the eradication of the bees due to pesticides.

He also showed how Ashdown has changed over the years. Now I know it is not realistic to believe that things will stay the same forever but for this forest and others forests the loss of vital creatures and plants is happening so quickly.

He shared some things that people could do to help the climate, simple things including reducing expenditures – meaning instead of throwing things away, repair and keep if you can – turn your thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer to use less power, think about transportation choices and email leaders often to ask them to do something to reduce greenhouse gas.

And then he spoke briefly about “the bear.” Winnie the Pooh was written by A. A. Milne in 1926, so in three years its 100^th anniversary will be celebrated. The forest is preparing for that day.

Pooh and nature have always gone hand-in-hand. When Pooh walked through the Hundred Acre Wood with Christopher Robin (who was named after Milne’s real son) they would contemplate the trees, the Sun, clouds and all of nature. From this bear we have and continue to learn so much – not only about ourselves and how to look at the positive before diving into the negative, but also how to just sit back and let nature teach us.

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.” ~ Winnie the Pooh

For the climate change presentation go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xXHdJf6Fpk.

For our area today we will seeing lower than normal temperatures with highs in the low 70s. This trend will continue through Friday but over the weekend and throughout next week we will be seeing a slight climb in temps to the mid-80s, which is closer to our normal temperatures.

“There has been a deep marine layer that has been persistent through the week,” said Ryan Kittell, NOAA meteorologist.

This deep marine layer has been bringing us some drizzle and today it is expected there will be more rain than drizzle.

As for our future, October and the fall months bring our most “blustery days” or Santa Ana winds. This is the most vulnerable time for wildfires. There is an El Niño event in our oceans.

El Niño is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, according to the National Geographic Society.

We have seen some El Niños that have brought more rain and some that have not.

“It is not a sure thing [but] a moderate to strong El Niño [is expected] this winter, which [does] increase the chance of [more] rain,” Kittell said.

However, he pointed out that it is extremely rare for Los Angeles to have back-to-back rainy winters. This is based on the 150 years of weather data recorded in LA.