What can the trees in our own backyards tell us about a changing climate?
Quite a lot, according to author, journalist and environmental advocate Mike Tidwell.
Tidwell will bring that message to Gettysburg on Saturday, Sept. 19, when he presents “Climate Changes and Trees: How Warming is Disrupting Life in Our Own Backyards — and What We Can Do.”
The program, hosted by Gettysburg Green Gathering, will be held at Gettysburg Rec Park’s Charlie Sterner building from 9:30 to 10:30am on Saturday, Sept, 19th. An audience question-and-answer session will follow from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m., with a book-signing opportunity afterward.
Tidwell is the author of The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street, published in 2025 and has spent decades reporting on environmental issues in the Mid-Atlantic. He is the founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and has written extensively about climate change, clean energy and environmental protection. Tidwell has spent decades reporting on environmental issues in the Mid-Atlantic.
In his latest book, he takes a very local approach to a subject that can sometimes seem very distant.
The story begins on Tidwell’s own street in Takoma Park, Maryland, where large, mature trees that had been part of the neighborhood for generations began to die. Tidwell became interested in the many ways a warming climate can affect trees and the communities that depend on them. Extreme weather, changing rainfall patterns, insects, disease and other environmental stresses can all take a toll on trees. And these effects aren’t necessarily happening somewhere far away – they are occurring locally in places like Adams County, PA and can be seen in the trees along our streets, in our yards, in our parks and in the woods surrounding our communities. That is the focus of Tidwell’s upcoming Gettysburg Green Gathering’s presentation.
The loss of trees on one neighborhood street becomes a window into a much larger story—and a reminder that environmental change can often be easiest to understand when we look at what is happening right outside our own doors.
That perspective is particularly relevant in Adams County. Trees are an important part of the landscape around Gettysburg, from the mature trees lining residential neighborhoods to the forests, farms and waterways throughout the region. Changes in temperature, precipitation, storms, insects and growing conditions can affect all of them.
Tidwell’s message, however, isn’t simply about what we are losing. It is also about what we can do. His presentation will explore both the challenges created by a warming climate and the opportunities individuals and communities have to make a difference.
For the Gettysburg Green Gathering, the program is an opportunity to bring that conversation into the community and encourage residents to look at the environmental changes happening around them in a new way. Sometimes understanding a global problem starts with something much closer to home.
It starts with a tree.
Visit: www.gettysburggreengathering.com to reserve a seat at the event.