Climate Files 59 / Wild Weather Wild Climate
The weather seems crazy everywhere, but what does that mean? 49 states in the U.S. got snow in the last week! It means climate change is happening right now and things are going to get much wilder. Find out how we know this and hear Todd Stern, U.S. climate envoy, talk about where the U.S. is going in dealing with climate change.
The Guardian on world-wide wild weather, article here.
Remember this? From NOAA at the end of January: December Global Ocean Temperature Second Warmest on Record. Scientists reported the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the eighth warmest on record for December.
In this episode you can hear excerpts from the Daily Show, the Rachel Maddow show, and the Thom Hartmann show. The bottom line on our wild weather is that it is to be expected, due to a warmer ocean, and moisture and energy in the atmosphere.
But as a result of recent storms, the Utah legislature passed a resolution (HRJ012) which basically states the climate change in a conspiracy and efforts to stop it will bankrupt the nation! Obviously this is not true, but science seems to be having a strange effect on some U.S. lawmakers.
As Scientific American says, “No single weather event proves or disproves the fundamental science of climate change, but extreme weather is what scientists expect from global warming.”
American Progress link to the whole Todd Stern presentation here. He talks about U.S. climate policy and what happened at Copenhagen. The new government climate change website is at Climate.gov and the EPA website where you can weigh in with the new Open Government Directive.
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Tags: bill mckibben, bill nye, climate, Climate Change, climate experts, daily show, extreme weather, more snowfall, rachel maddow, thom hartmann, todd stern, wild weather
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Shelly, thanks for the reading from James Hansen’s book. Yes, the weather is going to get wilder as the climate changes. But I have to disagree with your comments about how bad it is that everything “shut down” on the East Coast with the heavy snow. This is not really a bad thing — people try to do far too much of mostly the wrong thing: go to jobs that contribute little or nothing to our future (and that they hate as well), run to shopping malls in their cars, etc. Why not look upon snowstorms as a time to rest and reflect?
Of course, people are going to have to learn to be better prepared. You should look at Sharon Astyk’s work about preparing for a world where you can’t just run to the store to buy stuff, and where you don’t have a “job” that you travel by car to in order to earn “money.” It’s a new world, hon!
Yes, I didn’t explain it so well, but I meant that things need to stay open and function quickly after a storm. I was thinking of hospitals, ambulances, pharmacies, food shelves, grocery stores, transportation, etc. Power needs to stay on, roads need to be cleared. It seemed like basic functions out east shut down for so long and I was thinking of worse storms to come in the future, when hospitals and schools might very well be completely shut off from the world for a week or more. That would not be a good scenario…. I live in MN where we used to be experts at getting back up and running quickly after a strong snowstorm. Now things have changed because our state budget is in such debt and things are so bad that we are even cutting down on plowing snow off the streets. And money will be a problem in getting services up and running after very big, bad storms.
For example — There was a story of a couple dying in their home last week here in MN because of a garage fire that spread to their house. The fire fighters could not get their equipment up to the house to fight the fire because of the huge amount of snow that had not been cleared off their long driveway after the last snowstorm.
My main thought a long time ago in starting this project was to talk about how the future will be when we go to zero carbon energy. I was thinking of green cities and people living entirely differently. Now I’m starting to think this might not have to mean that we have far less energy than before, but it could mean more efficient usage of energy combined with better energy and better city planning and different types of communities, etc. We don’t have to go back to living without electricity.
Actually I love storms and don’t have a traditional job anyway so shutting down after a snowstorm doesn’t affect me much personally, but other people have to actually get places. I can’t imagine a world where people don’t have stores to buy things they need in. I think we aren’t going back to that unless forced, which we might very well be.