Getting warmer (redux)
We'll be in the nineties again tomorrow. A couple of days ago, we had a tornado in upstate New York. Again. Lots of trees and limbs down, again. Flooding again. A tree crashed through my cousin's roof and into his family room. The rain came down in sheets - literally a white-out out my back window. This is not the first really big storm we've had this season. And summer isn't even here yet.
Now, I'm not complaining. Upstate is nothing like Moore, Oklahoma, not by a long shot. But there can be no doubt that the weather here and everywhere else in the country is getting more severe. There is far more energy behind some of these storms than is normal. It takes a few mornings of driving through wreckage to drive home the notion that this may be the new normal. This may be the best we can expect in the years ahead. That is a disastrous prospect.
I have to think that, after there have been more Super Storm Sandies, more Moore-sized tornadoes, we will not take note of them in the same way anymore. We can't reverently mark something that takes place every week, every day. Just today, multiple funnel clouds are plowing through Oklahoma City, St. Louis, and points east. Tomorrow they'll be in Indiana, Ohio. After that, the front gets to us, and we start the cycle again. When we've been through this fifty times, will it still be news?
Someone out there, perhaps reading this, will be thinking, there's another crackpot blaming every storm on global warming. Heard it many times, and it's still groundless. No one is suggesting storms are caused by global warming. But the higher CO2 content in the atmosphere - now 400 ppm - fuels these storms, packs them with more energy than they would have otherwise. For decades, while we might have been working to prevent this, we've sat around, clinging to these comforting myths, tossing up vacuous excuse after vacuous excuse. The time for that is gone.
Now we have to deal with the consequences of our inaction. And it's not going to be easy, my friends. Wish I could say different.
luv u,
jp
Now, I'm not complaining. Upstate is nothing like Moore, Oklahoma, not by a long shot. But there can be no doubt that the weather here and everywhere else in the country is getting more severe. There is far more energy behind some of these storms than is normal. It takes a few mornings of driving through wreckage to drive home the notion that this may be the new normal. This may be the best we can expect in the years ahead. That is a disastrous prospect. I have to think that, after there have been more Super Storm Sandies, more Moore-sized tornadoes, we will not take note of them in the same way anymore. We can't reverently mark something that takes place every week, every day. Just today, multiple funnel clouds are plowing through Oklahoma City, St. Louis, and points east. Tomorrow they'll be in Indiana, Ohio. After that, the front gets to us, and we start the cycle again. When we've been through this fifty times, will it still be news?
Someone out there, perhaps reading this, will be thinking, there's another crackpot blaming every storm on global warming. Heard it many times, and it's still groundless. No one is suggesting storms are caused by global warming. But the higher CO2 content in the atmosphere - now 400 ppm - fuels these storms, packs them with more energy than they would have otherwise. For decades, while we might have been working to prevent this, we've sat around, clinging to these comforting myths, tossing up vacuous excuse after vacuous excuse. The time for that is gone.
Now we have to deal with the consequences of our inaction. And it's not going to be easy, my friends. Wish I could say different.
luv u,
jp
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