Europe suffered through a blazing hot summer with wildfires galore, Iguazu Falls is running high, Nevada is keeping an eye on a stressed dam and people are facing flooded streets and dwellings, the Outer Banks and other east coast spots are assessing damage after a massive, lingering nor’easter unleashed strong winds and dumped massive amounts of water.
I suppose it could all be coincidental. After all, droughts happen, heat happens, this is the season for tropical wind and rain, along with clashing warm and cold fronts at the change of seasons. But let’s leave some room for the likelihood that this collection of instances of excess is something more than coincidence, that there’s rhyme and reason to it.
Maybe the increased volatility and strength of some of these systems is indeed because the atmosphere continues to warm at an accelerated rate, as it has since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and more strikingly since the 1950s.
In the long—or maybe not-so-long—run, we won’t be able to handle it. The water will keep getting deeper and reaching places it previously never reached. The heat will reach a point where crops won’t grow and there will be no place for us to hide.
The current administration is acting as if none of this is real. Donald Trump conveniently and ignorantly calls it all a hoax, as do other elected officials beholden to Exxon and BP and oil sheiks everywhere. We should be incensed by this purposeful neglect. Besides not deserving one more vote, maybe it’s just time to put our faith in the private sector and concerned citizens who know a problem when they see it and apply themselves to finding solutions. While they still can.
