What really matters

Australia is suffering from its worst heat wave in history. The heat is so extreme that it killed one third of the entire population of flying foxes -- actually a species of bat -- in two days. If this continues, substantial parts of the country will become essentially uninhabitable, as will much of the Middle East and the tropics. And it will continue.

Here's what's been happening with heat waves around the world:

A heatwave was defined as a period of 4 or more days at a given location where the
minimum daily temperature was greater than the 99th percentile of the distribution
of minimum daily temperature at that location over the 1986-2005 reference period,for the summer months.

You aren't going to like it when it happens to you, believe me. Solomon and colleagues in NEJM comment on the global emergency, which is described more fully by Haines and Ebi here. They provide this figure:






I know it's too small to read but you can go to the original. Extreme weather events including massive storms, droughts, and wildfires; heat stress killing people and making it impossible to work; air pollution from burning fossil fuels and wildfires; water shortages; food shortages; vector born diseases; mass migration and socio-cultural stress and destruction. These aren't just off in some distant future. They are happening now, and it will get worse fast.

And here we are squabbling about an idiotic wall on the southern border, all because Vladimir Putin put his stooge in the White House. Listen up folks, this is the gravest emergency humanity has ever faced. World War II happened, and then it was over. This won't be over, ever, unless we stop it, starting now. Nothing else matters if we don't fix this.