Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This July and August, the Heat Index (“feels like” temperature) seemed to climb into the “Danger” zone every day and stay there for hours, its peak often exceeding the forecast. Could we be approaching deadly weather already? What about other, even muggier parts of the planet?
Hurricane Harvey has taught us many lessons, but the most valuable may be the oldest lesson of all, one we humans have been learning – and forgetting – since the dawn of time: how much we all have to lose when climate and weather disasters strike.
Weather and climate don’t cause disasters—vulnerability does. Perhaps counter-intuitively, this means that the widespread discussion as to whether the Hurricane Harvey disaster was caused by climate change becomes a dangerous distraction.
The evidence is mounting that we have entered a new regime of prolonged record-smashing extreme weather events thanks to our as-yet unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gas. But, as Francis, told ThinkProgress, that doesn’t mean we can attribute the stalling of Harvey to climate change and “near-record-low ice conditions in the Arctic’s Pacific sector” with certainty.
Since Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas late Friday night, more than 40 inches of rain have fallen in parts of the Houston metro area, producing the worst flood in the city’s modern history. The latest forecasts show another 15-25 inches on the way before Harvey clears out of the area on Wednesday. Harvey is sure to rank as the worst rainstorm in U.S. history, according to an initial analysis from the Texas state climatologist.
The storm last week was a whirling dervish that came through with such force that the windows and walls shuddered, the trees swayed, and at least one neighbor was left looking for the roof of his barn. It arrived as an unexpected guest, late last Saturday night.
Researchers have once again linked a sequence of devastating climate events to global warming fuelled by prodigal human use of fossil fuels. And this time, they believe they have identified the agency behind the blazing summers that have claimed lives and destroyed livelihoods repeatedly during this century.
Torrential rains unleashed on south Louisiana in August were made almost twice as likely by human-caused climate change, according to a quick-fire analysis released just weeks after the flood waters subsided.
During President Obama’s visit to a flood-ravaged area near Baton Rouge, Louisiana this week, a group of environmental activists delivered a petition to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) protesting the planned leasing of more of the Gulf of Mexico for oll and gas drilling.
Connecting extreme weather events with climate change isn’t exactly a new thing.
A rapid near-time analysis of the UK’s record-breaking wet December in 2015 suggests that climate change increased the odds of the exceptionally high rainfall by 50-75%.
As the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu is devastated by Cyclone Pam, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben links the storm to global warming and responds to the new decision by the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to back the fast-growing divestment campaign to persuade investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets.
