If you live in Vermont you should be forgiven if you are unaware that the United States Government just released a major report about how the world is getting warmer, will continue to do so, and in the process leave our descendents a hotter, wetter, and very different part of the country.

Such absolution is called for because the state’s news media paid scant attention. Not that they ignored the report completely. The Montpelier Times Argus did run the Associated Press story out of Washington when the report was issued last week.

And Vermont Public Radio aired a good story by reporter John Dillon about the report’s projection that higher temperatures could endanger two of the state’s iconic industries – skiing and sugaring

The VPR story quoted one of the lead authors of the report, Jerry Melillo of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, saying that according to some forecasts, “maple trees are expected to decline rapidly in the Northeast, perhaps spelling the end of maple sugaring all together in this part of the U.S.”

But that was about it.

Let’s not be too hard on our journalistic colleagues. One could argue that the report was not “Big News,” as conventionally defined; it didn’t tell folks what they didn’t already know. Aside from the few who, for whatever reason, refuse to accept the overwhelming weight of the evidence, people know that fossil fuel emissions are making the world warmer. Furthermore, the report was not based on original research.

But the “authoritative scientific report “(in its own words) – 196 pages supported by 563 footnotes – did  aggregate an extraordinary amount of existing research as reviewed by scientists from 13 government agencies.

For at least three other reasons, the report deserved more attention. There was the political reason. As the AP story noted, the report contained “the most urgent language on climate change ever to come out of any White House,” a polite way of noting that the Bush Administration, even after it abandoned its climate change denial shtick, tried to act as if it were a minor annoyance rather than a cosmic crisis.

(And, as we learned Thursday, shamelessly hid evidence that water contaminated with coal ash posed a serious health threat to thousands of people).

The second reason is that, unlike some “studies” from both government agencies and private advocacy groups, this one backs up it claims. All those footnotes are not just there for show. So when the report says “the climate of the Northeastern U.S.” has already begun changing in noticeable ways,” it gives readers the source of that statement (in this case, an article called Past and future changes in climate and hydrological indicators in the U.S. Northeast, by Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech university and nine other scientists in the journal. Climate Dynamics, Journal Number 28(4), pages 381-407).

The third reason  is the report’s regional specificity. Though it is  about”global climate change,” it is explicitly about its “impacts in the United States,” and it explained in some detail what those impacts would be in different regions, including this one. It all but laid out a road map so editors and news directors could find the “local angle” they so love.

Since they missed the ball, we’ll kick it around here.

Since 1970, the report said, the annual average temperature in the Northeast has increased by 2°F, with winter temperatures rising twice this much.”  For those seeking a silver lining in the cloud, there is one: longer growing seasons.

But also more “heavy downpours,” dirtier air leading to “increasing problems for human health,” and “severe flooding.”

Oh, and less snow. Perhaps a lot less snow.

Over the next several decades, those winter temperatures could rise at least another 2.5 degrees, perhaps as much as 4 degrees.

“The projected reduction in snow cover will adversely affect winter recreation and the industries that rely upon it,” the report says. “The length of the winter snow season would be cut in half across northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine…Winter snow and ice sports, which contribute $7.6 billion annually to the region’s economy, will be particularly affected by warming.”

In the woods, the report noted, the spruce and fur forests so important to northern New England are “declining already,” and are likely to continue doing so, replaced by maple and beach trees under the “lower possibility” of climate change, by oak and hickory under the “higher possibility.”

In addition, “large portions of the Northeast are likely to become unsuitable for growing popular varieties of apples, blueberries, and cranberries under a higheremissions scenario.”  As for maple trees and their prized sap, conditions suitable for maple forests “are expected to shift dramatically northward…eventually leaving only a small portion of the Northeast with a major maple sugar business.”

And if the grandchildren of today’s sugarers have to look for alternative sources of income, they’d be wise not to count on producing milk or running ski lodges. “By late this century,” the report says, “all but the northern parts of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont are projected to suffer declines in July milk production under the higher emissions scenario, (and) warmer winters will shorten the average ski and snowboard seasons, increase artificial snowmaking

requirements, and drive up operating costs.

“While snowmaking can enhance the prospects for ski resort success, it requires a great deal of water and energy, as well as very cold nights, which are becoming less frequent. Without the opportunity to benefit from snowmaking, the prospects for the snowmobiling industry are even worse. Most of the region is likely to have a marginal or non-existent snowmobile season by mid-century.”

OK, now here’s the good news. The report does not present a “worst case” scenario, but it is based on the present case, and it does not assume that new steps will be taken to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Congress is now considering such steps, and while no one can be certain that it will pass any bill, much less an effective bill, the bleak future projected in the report might never come to be.

“It’s not too late to act,” said Jane Lubchenco,  a marine biologist who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as she briefed the press about the report last week. “Decisions made now will determine whether we get big changes or small ones.”

The report itself noted that, “reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would lessen warming over this century and beyond. Sizable early cuts in emissions would significantly reduce the pace and the overall amount of climate change.”

Cutting emissions, though, is not easy, not even in Vermont, or maybe especially in Vermont. Interestingly, this assessment comes from an environmentalist, Ann Ingerson, an economist for the Wilderness Society who works from her Craftsbury Common home.

“Vermont’s in an odd position because we don’t use a lot of fossil fuel for our energy, except for transportation,” she said

The state gets most of its electricity from nuclear or hydro power, and many Vermonters heat their homes with wood,  not nearly as harmful a greenhouse gas as coal or oil.

But Vermonters drive a lot, Ingerson noted.

“We’re very rural, with people living all over the place,” she said. “It’s not very efficient to use public transportation because we’re scattered,”

There are steps Vermonters can take, she said, such as participating in the forest offset plans she’s working on, in which “forest land owners (are encouraged) to accumulate more carbon in their forests” (essentially by leaving them alone) in return for payments from people or companies that want to reduce their “carbon footprint.”

But perhaps the most effective step Vermonters could take, Ingerson said, is a step they rebuff – living in town or in a village center instead of out in the woods.

“Everyone says we should develop in compact villages,” she said, “but then everyone wants their own little place in the country.

Including, she acknowledged, herself.

Including, he is now shamed into acknowledging, the News Guy.

Remember what Walt Kelly said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”