Columnist Dana Wilde says he does not want his grandson to lose fall flowers, including the New England asters seen here, to overheated autumns. Dana Wilde photo

Every day this month, we’ve had classic, spectacularly gorgeous September weather. Some days were warmer than typical 50 years ago, but somehow the crisp air and azure sky have felt like old times.

The purple in the New England asters. A hue so darkly brilliant, or brilliantly dark, it seems to come from almost off the ultraviolet end of the visible spectrum. Visible to humans, anyway, which is only a sliver of all the light there is. The bushy and seaside asters, hard to tell apart, are autumn’s answer to fleabane in June. There’s hawkweed still, and heal-all in my backyard. No sunflowers this year, a consequence of loss, but they’re tall and bright yellow in patches of other yards.

By last week, the trees were starting to look withered and almost burnt. This is not because it’s been cold. It hasn’t. Nights have been 21st-century mild, which you’d think might fool the trees. But they navigate seasons principally by the sun, and calculate, in whatever way trees calculate, the perennial angle on what’s to come. The sun never changes. It’s the warm and cold, dry and wet weather that skips around in autumn and draws out color in the leaves.

Ash leaves fall first. The birches only an hour behind. Some maples have started to flare red. In another couple of weeks, the great conflagration will set in.

Blue jays scolding among the oaks.

This weekend, Silas my grandson, Jack my son and I will probably head to the Dixmont apple orchard. I expect the sun will continue bright, even as it lowers every day toward what comes next. This month has been traditionally gorgeous, but it’s anybody’s guess what November and December will bring.

In a week or two I’ll put my Citizens’ Climate Lobby lawn sign out at the end of my driveway: “Vote like the Earth depends on it.”

We don’t know exact details of how the next 50 years are going to play out, but we do know it’s going to be rough and get rougher as parts of the Earth’s dry land turns arid, and more enormous storms tear up communities. We also know it will be rougher if we do nothing to curb carbon emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere. Over time, that heat has been slowly erasing crisp September days and chilly September nights.

Usually such beautiful days are an escape from political ugliness. You never know who to believe, because you don’t know what most politicians are going to do no matter what they say. But this year, it’s different.

The difference is that you know a Democrat is probably going to support efforts to curb the effects of climate change. Even if he or she avoids talking about it. And you know that almost certainly, a Republican not only has no plan to do anything about the coming heat, drought and storm disasters, but is likely to actively try to shut down efforts to contain them. (For just one set of examples of former President Trump doing this, see Backyard Naturalist, Nov. 14, 2019. There are many other naturalist columns containing examples just like these.) The Maine and national Republican Party platforms make no mention of the impending threats of climate change. In fact, sometimes Republicans publicly pronounce that climate change is a hoax.

The lines between the two political parties are so clear that it’s accurate to generalize about candidates like this: A vote for a Republican is a vote to abet the forces that deny climate change is even happening; to abet the forces that for some reason don’t care if we self-destruct.

Climate change is not a hoax. It’s a gathering disaster that has already begun to tear up Maine’s coast and Vermont’s towns, deluged cities in Pakistan and Tunisia, fostered an unheard-of arctic storm this month in Central Europe. It’s well on its way to being humanity’s worst collective problem since World War II, and far beyond. The effects of climate change are going to grow a lot worse if everybody — which means individuals, businesses and governments — fails to devise solutions.

Research by the Environmental Voter Project indicates that “unlikely voters are twice as likely to list climate change as a top priority as likely voters.” Which might be part of the reason why the Democratic candidate for president avoids talking about climate change even though she knows damn well it is the world’s single most critical problem. This is an example of how not voting, when the political lines are so unusually clear, makes the problem of climate change worse.

We’ve had a nice respite from the disappearance of traditional fall this month. But if you care what happens in Septembers to come, you need to vote for it.

Dana Wilde lives in Troy. You can contact him at dwilde.naturalist@gmail.com. His book “Summer to Fall: Notes and Numina from the Maine Woods” is available from North Country Press. <http://www.northcountrypress.com/summer-to-fall.html> Backyard Naturalist appears the second and fourth Thursdays each month.