which is titled Climate change is real. Welcome to the new normal.
I am going to do something unusual to catch your attention, which is to begin with the penultimate paragraph:
Another news item from earlier this month should be instructive: A cargo ship is presently making the journey from Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast, to the German port of Bremerhaven via the Arctic Ocean, rather than taking the usual southern route through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar. Until now, the northern route has always been impassible because it was blocked by polar ice. But because of climate change, a lot of the ice has melted.
Ponder that for a moment.
Considering nothing else in this column in today’s Washington Post, that alone should scare the hell out of everyone. If that much ice has melted, consider what it means for the level of the seas.
And now, let’s return to our own time below the squiggle.
Robinson begins with Florence, which has dumped more than 30 inches of rain across parts of North Carolina, a record for the state. He also reminds us of national record of more than 60 inches dumped on Texas by Harvey last year and the devastating impact of Maria on Puerto Rico, before writing these words:
Welcome to the new normal.
Tropical cyclones are nothing new, of course. But climate scientists say that global warming should make such storms wetter, slower and more intense — which is exactly what seems to be happening. And if we fail to act, these kinds of devastating weather events will likely become even more frequent and more severe.
The column is well written, and potent, chock full of observations and facts.
Robinson briefly gives us a sense of the world-wide nature of the phenomenon of climate change by offering some facts on the impact of Mankhut, the world’s most intense storm this year with sustained winds of 165 mph.
He writes about attempts by scientists to measure the impact of climate change on specific weather events, and I found the following words, beginning in the middle of one paragraph and extending to the end of the next, to be especially cogent:
… the Climate Extremes Modeling Group at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, estimated Sept. 12 that Florence would produce 50 percent more rainfall than if human-induced global warming had not occurred.
You don’t have to be a scientist to understand why that makes sense. We know from direct measurement that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by more than 40 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when humans started burning fossil fuels on a large scale. We know from direct observation that carbon dioxide traps heat. We know from direct measurement that both atmospheric and ocean temperatures have been rising sharply. We know from direct measurement that warmer water takes up more space than cooler water, which is the main reason ocean levels are rising.
Let’s stop for a moment.
CO2 traps heat
Atmospheric CO2 has increased 40% in past several hundred years.
This leads to heating of air and water.
Warmer water takes up more space, causing oceans to rise.
That should be scary enough.
But let me go beyond those words.
Heat is also energy, which is the fuel for the winds of powerful storms, so we should expect stronger winds in “regular” storms that are not in the range of tropical cyclones.
More heat allows for more moisture to be in storms, which in winter increases the amount of snowfall, as those of us who lived through Snowmaggedon can attest (I measured 48” in my backyard in suburban Washington DC).
Returning to Robinson, he bluntly warns us that even were we to stop burning ALL fossil fuels now, the damage we have already done would continue for millennia, which means
We will be coping with massive tropical storms, tragic coastal and riverine flooding, deadly heat waves and unprecedented wildfires for the rest of our lives.
Robinson then reminds us of the stupidity of our current national administration, which having pulled out of the Paris Accords now wants to weaken
restrictions on carbon emissions from automobiles and coal-fired power plants. And last week, there were reports that the administration also wants to loosen rules governing the release of methane, which traps even more heat than carbon dioxide.
I am 72. It is highly unlikely I will live more than perhaps an additional 2 decades, probably less. Thus I will not see the real impact about which we all should be worried.
My wife and I have no biological children, but she is a devoted aunt to nieces and nephews, the offspring of her siblings.
Me? I have several thousand non-biological offspring. Remember, I have been teaching adolescents in grades 6 through 12 since 1995, the oldest of whom are now in their late 30s, and many of whom are already parents. Each school day I cannot help but look at the young faces before me and wonder what kind of world we are condemning them to.
I began this piece with Robinson’s penultimate paragraph.
If you are still here, at least I caught your attention.
I hope you will read Robinson’s entire column as written.
Then his final words, with which I will close, will have the full impact of the gut punch they represent, taking your breath away.
Here are those words:
Climate change is no longer theoretical. It is real, it is all around us, and it is going to get much worse.