Armadillos in Illinois?

When I was a child, my parents had good friends who lived in Galveston, Texas.  Whenever they went to visit, they would bring each of us back a small gift.  One time, we each got a different Bluebonnet the Armadillo book.  Ever since, I have loved armadillos.  So when I spotted a line in a recent Chicago Tribune article that states armadillos had been spotted in southern Illinois as early as the 1970's, my jaw dropped. 

If that isn't enough proof that the climate is changing, the article offers this awesome news I somehow missed four years ago:

"The 1990 map placed Chicago in Zone 5, where winter temperatures fall to as low as 20 below zero. The 2006 map reassigned Chicago to Zone 6, where the coldest winters reach just 10 below zero."

Our summer weather is in for drastic overall too:

"[I]f CO2 emissions continue to rise, the Chicago area's summer weather will be comparable to that of southern Illinois by 2029. By the end of the century, they believe, it will be comparable to a summer in eastern Texas."

That means we could have armadillos in Dupage County before I die!  Yippie!

I am not one of the crazy people who outright denies the fact that the climate is changing.  However, I do sometimes wonder what proportion of the changes are due to human activity, versus mother nature just going through her normal cycle of transformation.  I do think we need to curb our carbon emissions, but I also think we need to be very careful about how we try to stop the changes already in motion.  I believe that moving species around because scientists think they are "chronologically mismatched" will ultimately do more harm then good.

I also believe we need to embrace the changes we see in our environment, because they are inevitable.   Again, that doesn't mean we should try to help the process along by raising our carbon footprints.  What it means is welcoming armadillos, while being aware of the rising risk in droughts.  Enjoying the warmer winters, while being aware of what the warmer temperatures will mean for our garden.

It's getting hot up here