Sorry to intrude, but we have to talk about the climate crisis. I insist.
You know those big hurricanes that are destroying the U.S. East Coast? Scientists have been warning us about them for decades.
As I write this (October 8, 2024), much of the U.S. southeast region is reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Helene, which was described with the by-now-usual superlatives like “500-year-storm” that we hear multiple times a year. And, a second storm, Hurricane Milton, is targeting Florida which has already been ravaged by Helene. Milton in particular strengthened to Category 4 much faster than weather experts predicted or believed possible. I’m sorry to intrude on everyone’s complacency, or their preoccupation with politics, or (in a few cases) their outright denialism. But I just have to say, this is what human-caused global warming looks like and is doing to us. It’s getting a lot worse, very fast, and no one is prepared for it—despite the fact that we had all the time in the world to prevent it.
The truth is, no one should be surprised at what’s happening. Scientists—and those rarified, eccentric people who actually listen to them, because they’ve been proven right—have been screaming it from the rooftops for years. Today on the front page of the Guardian, one of the few news outlets that treats the climate emergency like the newsworthy topic that it is, had a headline titled “Earth’s ‘vital signs’ show humanity’s future in balance, say climate experts.” The article is here. It states what’s frankly obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention for the past decade or longer: the habitability of Earth is being destroyed by human-caused global warming, and our civilization is on the verge of collapse as a result. The blunt talk:
“More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”, it says...[Professor William Ripple of Oregon State University stated], “Climate change has already displaced millions of people, with the potential to displace hundreds of millions or even billions. That would likely lead to greater geopolitical instability, possibly even partial societal collapse.”
