Global Warming
By Alan Stewart
GLOBAL warming is being blamed by one of Britain's leading dog mushers for his 4am early-morning rises to cool down his hot dogs at their home in the shadow of the Cairngorms.
Alan Stewart has created a specially designed 15-metre shower area for his sleddogs at the Cairngorm Sled-dog Adventure Centre on Rothiemurchus Estate, by Aviemore, to combat the effects of climate change and protect his livelihood. The enormous outdoor facility was set up over the summer in order to help cool down his 14 dogs before and after training as they struggled to cope with soaring temperatures.
And although autumn is now just around the corner, temperatures are still too high for the dogs to be trained during the daytime as we currently have no option but to get up in the early hours to shower and run our dogs in order to make the most of the cooler start to the day to keep them in condition. Since starting my business 5 years ago, the season for the business has more than halved, from nine months to five months per year, because of the rising temperatures and lack of snow.
The former deep sea saturation diver hit upon the idea of an arched irrigation system to spray a fine mist down onto the dogs to keep them cool in the heatwave...after a visit to the United States. Mr Stewart was inspired by a scheme set up by Doug Swingley, following a visit to his home in Montana over the summer.He had spoken in detail about it also with Tim White IFSS president. As a result, equipment used to water larger greenhouses has been adapted especially for the shower run, with the system being supplied by rainwater run-off collected from the roof of his home in original whisky barrels.
Mr Stewart said the revolutionary system would give him a fighting chance of having the dogs fit and ready for business which is due to restart over the next few weeks. He said: He'll have installed this irrigation system that sprays a fine mist around two to three metres in an arch in the air and saturates the dogs.
It has given me a head start in training the dogs to be fit and ready for the winter season. We are a month ahead of the schedule we have been forced to follow in recent years due to the warmer weather we now experience.
We cannot run the dogs in temperatures over 12ºC, but now at least there is a window in which to train the dogs, albeit at 4am. Mr Stewart added: We are the only business in the UK who run sled-dog trips & courses , and those who are taken out think that the dogs are naturally super-fit and ready to run.
But they need conditioning before we can seriously think about taking people out on the sled carts".
I am convinced that global warming is taking its toll on his business, and he is having to adapt to keep trading none of this was necessary when I first started running the dogs 16 years ago, as temperatures were low enough to work the dogs at this time of year, but with rising temperatures, the running season has shortened, so I have had to find a way to keep my business viable.
I sincerely hope we have a better time than last year, which was a nightmare. I ended up losing a lot of money because the warm weather meant that the tracks literally turned to liquid mud wintry conditions had receded in the Cairngorms mountain range in recent years had been frightening not that many years ago there used to be sustained sub-zero temperatures which would keep the ground hard and that's just not the norm anymore.
The season only lasts for four or five months now, but when we started we could work for nearly nine months a year.
Latest figures produced by wildlife charity WWF Scotland show that this summer was the third hottest ever recorded in Scotland, keeping 2006 on track to be one of the warmest years ever. The three previous warmest years were the preceding three years.
Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, said that Mr Stewart's problems were a stark example that global change is occurring, and said that it highlighted the need for everyone and not just world leaders to take action before it was too late. He said: Climate change is the biggest challenge for the future. We are calling on the UK Government to commit to year-on-year reductions in emissions of climate-changing gases.
This means cracking down on polluting industries, a new attitude to transport and a revolution in energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy. The public can support us by signing up to do something themselves and to send a message to politicians.
Mr Stewart joined forces with the wildlife charity a year ago to promote the effects climate change was having on his life here in the strath. Last November he visited the European Parliament in Brussels to speak at a climate change conference organised by WWF.
The aim of the event was to highlight the need for effective EU climate policies and a strong EU Emission Trading Scheme to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and combat climate change.
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