VOLUME 1, ISSUE 4 Dear Patty Not sure what to do this Halloween? See what Patty the Pilgrim has to say on the subject! A Haunting in Vermont Something wicked sits just East of us! Read about the haunted house in Vermont! Green Scene Scare your friends with these horrifying facts about climate change! Patty’s Prophecies The horoscope you never knew you needed. PHOTO BY: ALEXIS CALL MAGAZINE Scare Your Friends This Halloween With These Horrifying Climate Crisis Facts! Nevada Elkins 2 MAGAZINE s October 31st rolls around, fear turns (IPCC) report, stating that the 20 warmest into fun! All the freaky thrills you've years on record have occurred in the last kept hidden away for the past 364 22 years. This is an upward and long-term Adays come crawling back out. The unhealthy temperature trend. 2015, 2016, 2017,2018 and obsession with Reese’s Pieces, the horror movie 2019 had some of the highest temperatures binges, and the same devil costume you have since 1880. been wearing to college parties every year are Skeletons in your closet? The oceans got just dying to make their annual appearance! them, too. Except there is one horror, a bone- The ocean absorbs large quantities of chilling, hair-raising menace that will make an heat as a result of the increasing concentrations appearance this Halloween and the rest of the of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, year . or maybe, if you are really unlucky, the mainly from fossil fuel consumption. The rest of your life. ocean is acting as a shield, protecting humans We're talking climate crisis, baby! from some of the more rapid changes in This Halloween, you can scare yourself climate. Without the ocean acting as a buffer, and your friends with these rattling facts about temperatures across the globe would already the deteriorating world around us! have risen much more than what we are Climate change is already happening currently seeing. However, ocean warming and its detrimental to human life. leads to deoxygenation, or a reduction in the Global climate change is occurring, amount of oxygen in the ocean. The increasing right now. The observable effects on the temperatures paired with ocean acidification, environment can be seen across the world. or the decrease in pH of the ocean due to an The ice sheets are ripping from their restraints, uptake of CO2, affects marine species and sea levels are rising, wildfires are blazing and underwater ecosystems. temperatures are increasing rapidly, both Coral reefs are one of the ecosystems above and below the waterline. Scientists that are particularly vulnerable to changes in are confident that global temperatures will sea temperatures. Mass coral bleaching events continue to rise for decades to come; a direct and infectious disease outbreaks among corals result of greenhouse gasses that are produced are already occurring. The consortiums of by human activities. The jumps in temperature color and biodiversity of the reefs are being will likely feed the more drastic effects of boiled into limestone skeletons; graveyards climate change, negatively impacting air replace ecosystems. quality and crop production, increasing the The worst impacts of climate change spread of infectious diseases, and threaten could be irreversible by 2030. freshwater deposits. The IPCC warned the public that It all comes full circle: humans created we are a ticking clock; we have ten years to the mess and now we are going to live with the prevent the worst impacts of climate change. consequences. We must cut our emissions in half to even The 20 hottest years on record have attempt to avert catastrophic impacts that been in the past 22 years. are bubbling over our boiling pot of a planet. The World Meteorological Organization Despite this fact, little has changed in regard (WMO) collected the research that was to our greenhouse gas emissions, and that is released in the 2018 United Nations terrifying. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change If you are not scared, you should be. 3 MAGAZINE A HAUNTING IN VERMONT Mariah Olmstead here’s a rumor that a man named At first I thought it was one of Perley Gordon hung himself in the my brothers, but quickly realized that house at the end of the street where none of them were that tall. I sat there in TI grew up. My street, named Perley Gordon disbelief, thinking I was dreaming as I Road, is named after him. scrambled for my flashlight. But as soon as it came, it disappeared. I woke one of my I grew up in a farmhouse that dated older brothers and told him, but he quickly back to the early 1900’s. It’s a big, old, explained it away as a dream and told me to wooden building, and when we first moved go back to bed. in, in 2002, I knew something was off. The house felt cold, the floorboards creaked, and Fast forward 4 years. I was in 5th I always felt like someone was following me. grade and my younger brother and I were I lived with my 3 brothers growing up, the upstairs in the “playroom," building with youngest being a year younger than me, the LEGO’s when we heard a loud sound. My second being three years older than me, and younger brother got up to investigate and my oldest brother being in high school. told me to follow him. We went over to look at the stack of boxes in the other room and For the first week we all slept in the whole thing had fallen over. But, here's the living room while we waited for our the weird part; the boxes weren’t that high, furniture to arrive, including our beds. I nor could they have easily fallen over. There remember the very first night we spent in was no wind and our other siblings weren’t our sleeping bags. I smushed between my home. The only other person who was there brothers on the floor when I suddenly woke was our mother, and she was in another part up. of the house. What occurred next will always stick Scared, we ran downstairs and never with me; I saw, what looked like a shadow spoke of it again. figure, about 6 feet tall, wearing a brimmed hat. Around 2007, my two older brothers were up late watching movies in the family 4 MAGAZINE Secatibe runtum earum sincilla velenimus auta nobit raecus di omniet auta nobit raecus earum sincilla velenimus Secatibe runtum 5 MAGAZINE room when they heard whispering. I guess I’ll never truly know if anyone was there, but I do know one thing: At first, they thought it was me or that house was and is haunted. Although my younger brother, but realized we were none of my family members were ever asleep and no one else was awake. This is really injured, we have seen apparitions when they both became believers. quite a few times and many things have been knocked over. My mother and father were less easily convinced. It took them until 2009 We’ve also heard noises like people to truly believe something was haunting talking when no one is home and felt a chill our house. Things would fall off shelves, on our backs at random times. Everyone in paintings or pictures would be straight my family knows our house is haunted and one day and crooked when they woke up although we know none of the spirits want the next. Numerous times my brothers, to hurt us, it still scares us whenever we talk mother, and I felt extremely cold whenever about it. we walked up the stairs. A few times, while walking into rooms, it would feel like we were being pushed, but no one was around. For me, the scariest time, to this day, was on Christmas eve in 2004. I, like many kids, believed in Santa and was too excited to sleep. I remember putting my head under the blankets and letting my legs fall off of the end of the bed. I was about to fall asleep when I felt something pull my foot. I looked up from under the blankets, thinking it was one of my brothers playing a prank, but no one was there. I remember saying, “Ok, you can come out now. I know it's you,” but no one answered. I was scared, so I stuck my head underneath the blankets a second time but felt as if someone was sitting on my legs. I yelled for it to stop and when I pulled the blanket off my head, I saw what looked like a puff of dark smoke dissipate in front of me. When I awoke the next morning, there were scratch marks on right where I felt something sitting. 6 DEAR PATTY, Halloween has always been my favorite Holiday. But this year with everything that’s been going on, I’ve found it very difficult to get into the spirit of things. Usually, I would decorate, I would make an elaborate costume from scratch, I would be watching all the classic movies like Addams Family, and Addams Family Values, but my heart just hasn’t been in it this time around. Do you have any suggestions on how I can get into the spirit, despite the COVID complica- tions? -Hopeless Halloweener ear Hopeless Halloweener, left town, one of his plants that done it. Thank you for reaching out Or maybe I’m thinking of Paul the older and seeking my expertise on man I met who owned a cactus farm on the D good side of Arizona in 1948.