I am 400 miles away from my home in Virginia, in the mountains of Southwest, volunteering at the Wise Health Fair (about which you can read my diary of yesterday). That means I missed an historic day in the DC Metro area - as you can read in this story Dulles Airport hit an all-time high of 105 degree, Marshall Airport just outside Baltimore hit 106 for its second highest reading ever, and Reagan National's 102 was one degree shy of its alltime high - and the heat index hit an extremely dangerous 126 degrees. Exceedingly high temperatures were felt all over the Northeasten US -
The Weather Channel reported that New York’s Central Park was 104 degrees Friday afternoon, the hottest reading there since 1977, and that the 104-degree reading in Atlantic City, N.J., was the hottest there since 1969.
Other cities reached all-time highs: Hartford, Conn., notched 103 degrees; Newark reached 108; and Boston, which hit 103, had its hottest day since 1926.
That makes a Post op ed from Manish Bapna, interim president of the World Resources Institute, and Jennifer Morgan,director of the institute’s climate and energy program, particularly relevant. It is titled Five myths about extreme weather and provides some important information relevant to any discussion of what so many are experiencing across the country.
I urge you to read it.
Below the fold I will offer the five key points, some selections from their explanations on a couple, and perhaps some additional words of my own.
The words in bold are the five myths as listed in the piece. 1. This summer is much hotter than normal. While
Last month’s global average land surface temperature was the fourth warmest on record. And July is doing its best to outdo June.
we need to recognize that any records now being set may well be soon surpassed, because
we may be witnessing a new normal in heat and other extreme weather.
2. “Hundred year” weather events happen only once every 100 years.. Actually, we call these "hundred year" events because they were considered to have a 1% chance of happening. We probably need a better term, one that is a more accurate description of what is happening, because
the fact that what were once considered hundred-year events seem to be happening more often is consistent with climate models projecting that rising global average temperatures will lead to more frequent and severe extreme weather.
3. Extreme droughts and extreme floods can’t both be due to climate change. Actually such extreme events can be strongly related to the same cause:
Scientists have found that climate change can trigger periods of intense rainfall followed by long spells of dry weather. This combination of severe rainstorms and droughts, in turn, can lead to more flooding, landslides, soil erosion and other disasters. There are signs in some places that this may already be underway.
The authors offer examples from India and China to illustrate this.
4. An extra one or two degrees in temperature is no big deal. Oh yes it is!
Since pre-industrial times, the global average surface temperature has increased by 1.4 degrees — with more than one degree of that warming happening in the past three decades.
We are seeing results in things like the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the disappearance of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, and so on. Glaciers are disappearing. The authors remind us that not only is this significant, but we should be paying attention to what climate scientists are warming, that if we do not make significant progress in reducing carbon emissions, we could experience an additional increase in average planetary temperatures of up to 11.5 degrees by the end of this century, now less than 9 decades away. As they put it,
The consequences are hard to imagine.
5. Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Countries, businesses and individual can do and are doing a great deal:
At least 85 nations have pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or limit their growth by 2020 by shifting to renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency and protecting forests, among other efforts. Similarly, some Fortune 500 companies and even the U.S. military are working to reduce their carbon emissions. A good start, but not nearly enough.
The authors offer some specific examples that are occuring but warn that we can do much, much more tor reduce the carbon emissions that are such a major contributor to what is happening. As they put it, bluntly, in their final sentence, When it comes to our warming planet, it’s time for less hot air and more action.
Our national policy is held captive by energy interests more concerned with their own profits over the relative short term than with sustainability of an environment in which our nation can flourish. Given how much corporations are empowered in our political system (and this was true well before Citizens United), and combined with the viewpoints of some who distort biblical material to impose a theological viewpoint that is either deliberately ignorant of scientific evidence or - worse - distorts science to try to "prove" a point of view that is harmful to the entire globe, we are limited in what we may be able to accomplish through changes in national policy and law. This is despite the fact that both the Military and the Intelligence Community are on record about the thread continued uncontrolled global climate change represents to our national security.
In the short term, even as we lobby national, state, and local and legislative bodies and agencies for changes in laws, rules and policies that make a difference, we each have a responsibility to do what we can to make a difference. That may mean fully turning off electric devices that are energy hogs while in standby mode - computers, televisions, etc. We can draw drapes, blinds and curtains to prevent the sun from warming our homes through sunlight intensified coming through our windows, thereby burdening our air conditioning less. We can change thermostatic settings.
Even in winter, we need to remember that the electricity we draw is in this country heavily dependent upon the burning of coal. Any reduction in coal usage at any point of the year serves to reduce the additional carbon emissions into the atmosphere that contributes to the kinds of extremes we are now experiencing.
I am writing this from coal country - from a part of the country that even though there are now few jobs in the coal industry still culturally sees itself as dependent upon coal consumption. Urging less electrical usage so there is less coal consumption will not be popular here, a part of Virginia which despite some getting rich on coal remains impoverished compared to the rest of the Commonwealth. The same is true a short distance from here across the state's boundary with eastern Kentucky.
I know that some will use the current extreme conditions to argue for greater use of nuclear power generation, but as we have seen in the past few months in Japan, that has the potential for even greater short term damage to human habitation and the environment in general.
It is still unpopular, but we must be working for, writing about, arguing strenuously for the reduction of energy consumption by all. We need to be moving to greater use of and reliance upon renewable sources. Even if some influential actors continue to see the use of carbon based sources of energy as how they enrich themselves.
Still, we have an obligation to speak truth, not only to political power, but to the populace whose votes should control that political power.
Today I was glancing through op ed pages and realized I had encountered a piece about which I wished many more were aware. So I took the time for this diary.
I hope you found it of use.
Stay cool, because the heat is dangerous, and in some places will be worse today than yesterday.