Stop talking right now about the threat of climate change. Its here; its happening
For the sake of keeping things manageable, lets confine the discussion to a single continent and a single week: North America over the last seven days.
In Houston they got down to the hard and unromantic work of recovery from what economists announced was probably the most expensive storm in US history, and which weather analysts confirmed was certainly the greatest rainfall event ever measured in the country across much of its spread it was a once-in-25,000-years storm, meaning 12 times past the birth of Christ; in isolated spots it was a once-in-500,000-years storm, which means back when we lived in trees. Meanwhile, San Francisco not only beat its all-time high temperature record, it crushed it by 3F, which should be pretty much statistically impossible in a place with 150 years (thats 55,000 days) of record-keeping.
That same hot weather broke records up and down the west coast, except in those places where a pall of smoke from immense forest fires kept the sun shaded after a forest fire somehow managed to jump the mighty Columbia river from Oregon into Washington, residents of the Pacific Northwest reported that the ash was falling so thickly from the skies that it reminded them of the day Mount St Helens erupted in 1980.
That same heat, just a little farther inland, was causing a flash drought across the countrys wheat belt of North Dakota and Montana the evaporation from record temperatures had shrivelled grain on the stalk to the point where some farmers werent bothering to harvest at all. In the Atlantic, of course, Irma was barrelling across the islands of the Caribbean (Its like someone with a lawnmower from the sky has gone over the island, said one astounded resident of St Maarten). The storm, the first category five to hit Cuba in a hundred years, is currently battering the west coast of Florida after setting a record for the lowest barometric pressure ever measured in the Keys, and could easily break the 10-day-old record for economic catastrophe set by Harvey; its definitely changed the psychology of life in Florida for decades to come.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/11/threat-climate-change-hurricane-harvey-irma-droughts
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)in order to make rebuilding practical. Construction costs will increase dramatically because of this new design as climate change is accelerating each year. Island.paradises may become a thing of the past. The current administration and GOP's position on climate change is absurd and they all need to be removed from political office quickly.
Maggiemayhem
(809 posts)Most coastal property will become uninsurable. Only the very rich will be be able to take the fininancial hits of coastal living. Seriously, how long do you think federally subsidized flood insurance is going to continue with record breaking flooding? Even isolated extreme downpours are putting inland towns under water. It is only going to worsen.
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)Nitram
(22,791 posts)We haven't seen nothing yet. If we don't start taking steps to reduce emissions soon, the following generations will be in big trouble.
world wide wally
(21,740 posts)Do they have that same right on Newton's Laws of Motion, or his Laws of thermodynamics? Can we discuss gravity in a pro and con way, or how to escape it?
This debacle is made by possible by two entities; The fossil fuel industry, and the Republicans they contribute to.
Time to fucking wake up, America.
Arkansas Granny
(31,515 posts)we do, yet they treat it as rumor, not fact. It's willful ignorance, which is something at which right wingers excel.