Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Monday, August 09, 2021

Climate: The wolf is at the door

As I have noted a couple of times recently, a problem when scientists address the general public is their habitual reticence about making unequivocal statements. This has probably cost humanity and our fellow creatures unimaginably because previous reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been couched in equivocal terms: "substantial degree of certainty," "90% probability," that sort of thing. This has allowed wiggle room for deniers and helped get us into our present predicament.


Well, weasel words no more


A heat wave that killed hundreds this summer in the US Northwest and British Columbia would have been "virtually impossible" without the climate crisis, researchers found. It made Hurricane Harvey's devastating rainfall roughly three times more likely to occur and 15% more intense, scientists said. Harvey dumped more than 19 trillion gallons of water on Texas and Louisiana in 2017, triggering devastating floods in the Houston area. The IPCC says heavy rainfall that used to occur once every 10 years now occurs 30% more frequently.
 
Globally, droughts that may have occurred only once every 10 years or so now happen 70% more frequently, according to the report. The climate change connection is particularly strong in the Western United States, which is experiencing a historic, multiyear drought that has drained reservoirs and triggered water shortages.Amid unrelenting drought and record heat, wildfire seasons are now longer and result in more destructive fires. Six of the top 10 largest fires in California have occurred in 2020 or 2021, according to CalFire.

 

We have no time left. Zero.  Concerted action to eliminate fossil fuel use has to begin now. And there is substantial action in president Biden's infrastructure bill, which must pass. But that's not nearly enough. So let me take this occasion to bitterly and angrily condemn the Republican party, the only major party on the planet that denies the reality of anthropogenic climate change. They do this because people who profit from the fossil fuel industry, including the major oil companies and the Koch brothers, pay them to do it. 


That is the profoundest imaginable evil.

 

2 comments:

Don Quixote said...

So articulately stated. And that only makes the grim prognosis that much more bitter

Don Quixote said...

From today's NY Times headline:

A Hotter Future Is Certain, Climate Panel Warns. But How Hot Is Up to Us.

Nations have delayed curbing emissions for so long that global warming will inevitably intensify over the next 30 years, a major U.N. report found.

There is a short window to avoid the most harrowing future, the report said. Doing so would require a coordinated international effort starting immediately.

---

Twenty years ago, Al Gore won the US presidential election. His victory was snatched away by a sex addict and liar (Clarence Thomas), a twisted constitutional perverter (Antonin Scalia) and others who'd been installed on the US Supreme Court -- along with GW Bush's brother, Jeb, the governor of Florida -- to subvert the will of the people and lick corporate executives' asses.

That was our best chance to reverse anthropogenic climate change. The film "An Inconvenient Truth" had come out and awareness of the greatest threat facing humanity was growing. The corporate wolves, insane with their own power lust, sprang, obtaining the Court's help in stopping a recount in Florida (the same place where Covid is exploding out of control now, abetted by another cynical, evil governor).

Our chances for survival as a species are directly correlated to our willingness to accept the clearest science and political truth we can obtain, instead of forcing the square peg of corporate greed into the round holes of lies and corruption -- which will push us over the cliff of human existence that much faster.