A war on Christmas is being waged, but not by secular humans. Climate change is affecting traditional symbols of the season.
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and his kin are vanishing into holiday myth:
Caribou require a great deal of space to survive, but the clearing of land for one development project after another, combined with the building of roads and other means of access for resource exploration, are bringing about profound changes to their habitat and making it easier for hunters to reach them.
A changing climate is adding additional stress. More winter rain and ice make it difficult for them to dig for the food that lies under the snow. The timing between caribou arrivals on calving grounds and spring plant growth, calibrated over thousands of years, are more and more mismatched, threatening calf survival. Unpredictable weather patterns are increasing mortality as well, and the escalating intensity and frequency of fires in forests and on the tundra present an additional threat.
Christmas trees face multiple threats:
Nativity pageants are running out of gifts from the Magi, thanks to a frankincense shortage:
Ethiopian trees that produce much of the world's frankincense are declining so dramatically that production could be halved over the next 15 years and the trees themselves could decline by 90% in the next 50 years.
Mommy won't be kissing Santa Claus under the mistletoe, as poor Texas weather is blamed for the holiday shortage:
The dry weather in Texas this year has wreaked havoc on a number of the state’s crops and has been considered the worst in the Lone Star State’s history. Close to 70% of the state’s mistletoe plants have been hurt by the drought.
Dreaming of a white Christmas? It's a rarity across the United States this year, as November 2011 registers as among the warmest on record:
In the contiguous U.S., November ranked as the 25th warmest November in the 117-year record. Thirteen states in the Northeast and Upper Midwest recorded a top-ten warmest November, and no states had a top-ten coldest November. Eight states had a top-ten wettest November--Indiana, Ohio, Missouri,Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. One state had a top-ten driest month, Minnesota. Texas had its 39th driest November on record, keeping 76% of Texas under extreme to exceptional drought as of December 13, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Fortunately, we humans can fight back against this War on Christmas: 