Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumThe day I tasted climate change
Every one of us will have a moment when global warming gets personal.In early November, gale-force winds whipped a brush fire into an inferno that nearly consumed the town of Paradise, California, and killed at least 86 people.
By the second morning, I could smell the fire from one foot outside my door in Berkeley, some 130 miles from the flames. Within a week, my eyes and throat stung even when I was indoors.
Air quality maps warned that the soot-filled air blanketing the Bay Area had reached very unhealthy levels. For days, nearly everyone wore masks as they walked their dogs, rode the train, and carried out errands. Most of those thin-paper respirators were of dubious value. Stores quickly ran out of the good onesthe N-95s that block 95% of fine particlesand sold out of air purifiers, too.
People traded tips about where they could be found, and rushed to stores rumored to have a new supply. Others packed up and drove hours away in search of a safe place to wait it out. By the time my masks arrived by mail, I was in Ohio, having decided to move up my Thanksgiving travel to escape the smoke.
Climate change doesnt ignite wildfires, but its intensifying the hot, dry summer conditions that have helped fuel some of Californias deadliest and most destructive fires in recent years.
Ive long understood that the dangers of global warming are real and rising. Ive seen its power firsthand in the form of receding glaciers, dried lake beds, and Sierra tree stands taken down by bark beetles.
This is the first time, though, that I smelled and tasted it in my home.
Read more: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612658/the-day-i-tasted-climate-change/
A firefighter searches for human remains in a trailer park destroyed in the Camp Fire last month.
JOHN LOCHER | AP
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)and climate change is the greatest threat to the continuation of this planet as we know it. We need leaders that believe in reality, not alternative reality! I feel the pain and reality of the Paradise, CA region.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,123 posts)CousinIT
(9,267 posts)....a record number of Cat 5 (+) hurricanes.
Dry as a bone in the West. Almost constant flooding and HellStorms in the East.
2naSalit
(86,880 posts)up here in the northern Rockies.
mountain grammy
(26,663 posts)they hit 100 inches of rainfall for the year and another soaker expected this weekend. Unprecidented rainfall. 87 inches was the previous record.
Drowning in climate change.
CousinIT
(9,267 posts)Over a foot of snow before XMas, then 3 days of straight rain, then dry 3 days then 3-4 more days of straight rain, then dry a few days and then this weekend, the crap that's soaking SC will be soaking NC for FOUR SOLID DAYS.
It's damn RIDICULOUS.
If humans were at all wise, they'd collect all this damn precip in the East somewhere - a reservoir or a bunch of them and pipe that crap to the West coast where it's needed!