Weather Warnings: A Newcomer's Guide to the Climate Crisis
Where We Are (And What Happens If Trump Wins)
We are changing the weather, and not for the better. At this point, the scientific consensus on the climate crisis should be simple common sense. You do not have to be a Democrat or a Republican to feel the historic effects of the recent Heat Dome. Whether you live in the Midwest or the Northeast, you know from painful experience that temperatures have hit new and unprecedented highs.
Everything about the new reality appears so unreal. Florida has been hit with massive “rain bombs” like Invest 90L. This once-in-200-years event will not be a once-in-every-200-years event much longer. Indeed, forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predict that rising seas could ensure “that South Florida [sees] almost 11 extra inches of ocean by 2040” (emphasis mine).
Meanwhile, hundreds of people have died during the annual hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Global aid agencies like Islamic Relief warn that, “[s]hould the world’s emissions continue in a business-as-usual scenario, temperatures in Mecca will rise to levels that the human body cannot cope with” (emphasis mine). In short, give the status quo enough time, and it will make the birthplace of Islam uninhabitable (which makes the Trump agenda doubly dangerous for Muslims and Muslim-Americans). Even once climate-blessed Brazil just recently experienced catastrophic floods leading to the evacuation of more than 650,000 people, “the country’s biggest displacement on record” (emphasis mine).
The official end of El Niño—and of its warming effect on the entire planet—in May should probably bring you little comfort. A cooler La Niña this year will only delay the inevitable. Hotter El Niños will be coming our way in the years to come. Read the signs of the skies. Just 5 years ago, could New Englanders have ever imagined that our skies would turn an eerie orange from Canada wildfire smoke?
We should not kid ourselves about exactly how dangerous a situation we could find ourselves in. Heat is “the leading cause of weather-related deaths.” Our bodies are not meant to handle regular triple-digit temperatures. Frankly, neither are our minds. Heat waves increase frustration, irritation, anger, listlessness, and stress in an already-stressful world. They also have been found to cause less high-quality sleep and more suicide, domestic violence, substance abuse, and crime.
Ignore climate change at your own cost. It will affect every aspect of your daily life. Are you worried about inflation, for example? Well, if not for climate change, prices for products like olive oil and coffee would not be nearly as high as they are today. Climate change, much like the cost of groceries, is a pocketbook problem. Yet to reduce it merely to a pocketbook problem—or a quality-of-life problem—is to forget the damage we are doing to entire ecosystems that existed long before us.
Climate change, much like income inequality, is the issue behind all other issues. Keep that in mind when people like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis pass laws that slowly delete the climate change conversation out of existence. Unfortunately, both for Ron and for us, deleting the language does not mean deleting the threat. Florida knows that firsthand. Of the ten worst cities to live in as climate change progresses, five of the top 10 were in the Sunshine State. That is why “[c]oastal Florida cities have seen insurance rates skyrocket.” Floridians ought to know better than anyone the real-life consequences of climate change.
Which means we as a society have two choices. Either we acknowledge climate change and try to do something about it under Biden, or we let it get worse under Trump. Think hard about that when you go to the ballot box this November. Or else we risk turning our “tree-huggers” into this century’s apocalyptic prophets.
