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monsoon
Instead of Moving to Escape Climate Chaos, Build Social Trust Where You Are
As global heating shrinks the size of the board on which we play the game of life, we’re going to need to return to the basic human experience of relying on the people around us.
Aug 05, 2023
I’ve given a lot of talks about climate change over the years—that’s part of what organizers do. And I can predict with great confidence the questions that people will raise their hands to ask. “Isn’t the real problem overpopulation?” (Not really; most population growth is coming in places that use incredibly small amounts of energy.) Or “what about nuclear?” (keep the plants we’ve got open if we safely can; new ones are incredibly slow and expensive to build, though someday a generation of yet newer ones could conceivably change that; in the meantime rely on the nuclear reactor hanging a safe 93 million miles up in the sky).
I can also predict the questions people will ask later, privately, as the crowd drifts out of the auditorium. One—“Is it OK for me to have a kid?”—is almost unbearably painful; no one should have to ask it. The other—“Where should I move?”—is a (little) less traumatizing. And I think it’s on a lot of minds, especially right now, as it becomes clear that many parts of our Earth won’t be habitable going forward. As I tried to explain in a recent book, global heating is systematically shrinking the size of the board on which humans can play the game of life.
On the one hand, the question implies a certain self-centered approach to the climate crisis—how do I avoid this huge communal disaster—as well as a certain quanta of privilege: Most people in this world, especially the ones who really need a new home, lack the resources or the legal ability to pick up and move. Still, we each get one life and we need to live it somewhere.
A recent study found that every time the temperature rises another tenth of a degree Celsius, another 140 million humans find themselves living outside what scientists call the “human climate niche,” the zone with temperatures where our species flourishes.
It’s easier, actually, to figure out where not to live. Phoenix may be the fastest-growing big city in the country, but anyone who moves there after this summer is not paying attention: 31 straight days over 110°F, and emergency rooms filled with people who burned themselves by… falling on the sidewalk. But it’s not just obvious places, like the middle of the desert. Last week, at 4,000 feet in the Andes, the temperature topped 95°F—in winter. (Weather historian Maximiliano Herrera described it as “one of the extreme events the world has ever seen.”) Or take Athens, one of those places we like to call a cradle of Western civilization, but two years ago the city’s “chief heat officer” was already warning it might be becoming uninhabitable; last month, during the longest heatwave in the city’s history, authorities closed the Acropolis to tourists in the afternoons.
Even in places used to dealing with extremes, life is getting harder; India’s monsoon, for instance, is ever more “violent and unpredictable.” In Himachal Pradesh, for instance, “the state has already received 1,200% more than its annual rainfall, according to data from the India Meteorological Department. Landslides and floods have claimed nearly 100 lives.”
I could muster these kinds of statistics for virtually any place you want to name: A recent study found that every time the temperature rises another tenth of a degree Celsius, another 140 million humans find themselves living outside what scientists call the “human climate niche,” the zone with temperatures where our species flourishes.
But as this summer—with the increase in global temperature at least temporarily topping the 1.5°C that the world swore to avoid in Paris—demonstrates, no place is really safe, even within those supposedly habitable zones. I live in Vermont, in the mountains of the American northeast, which has sometimes been seen as a “climate haven” because it’s at a high enough latitude to avoid the worst heatwaves, isolated from a stormy ocean coast, and historically wet. But this summer we’ve had too much water: some of the worst flooding in the country. We’re not that far from the overheated north Atlantic, and so wave after wave of unrelenting rain has descended on the state, drowning, among other things, the main street of our capital city (previously best known for being the only state capital without a McDonald’s). Another round of thunderstorms struck over the weekend; my county got six inches of rain, triggering landslides and closing the roads in and out of town. It turns out that steep mountain slopes and narrow mountain valleys combine with an overheated atmosphere (remember the 21st century’s most important physical fact: Warm air holds more water vapor; July set a new record for U.S. thunderstorms) to produce crazy flooding. I was away during this round of meteorological depravity, and it was hard to be seeing pictures of roads I travel every day wiped out.
There is no safe place.
And yet I remain glad I live where I do, not because it’s protected from climate change, but because it’s at least a little bit more equipped to deal with it. And that, in turn, is because it has high levels of social trust. Only 38% of Americans say they mostly or completely trust their neighbors, but a 2018 Vermont survey found that 78% of residents think that “people in my neighborhood trust each other to be good neighbors”; 69% of Vermonters said that they knew most of their neighbors, compared with 26% of Americans in general. Those levels of social trust help explain, I think, why the state had the lowest level of fatalities from Covid-19, much lower than its neighboring states and much lower than other small rural states with similarly homogeneous populations. Everyone wore masks, everyone got vaccinated. In the same way, when this summer’s floods hit, people came together, reenacting the surge of mutual aid that came after Hurricane Irene similarly drenched the state in 2011.
This is not an argument to move to Vermont. Among other things, the state had the lowest housing vacancy rate in the country before this summer’s flooding wiped out more of the state’s affordable housing stock. And Vermont has its share of problems, some of them rooted in an aging population resistant to progress of any kind—there are times when I think its de facto motto is “Change Anything You Want Once I’m Dead,” which explains among other things the de facto moratorium on building the wind turbines that could help provide us cleaner power.
We’ve come through 75 years where having neighbors was essentially optional: If you had a credit card, you could get everything you needed to survive dropped off at your front door. But the next 75 years aren’t going to be like that.
Instead it is an argument to get to work building that kind of social trust in as many places as possible, because we’re going to need it. We’ve come through 75 years where having neighbors was essentially optional: If you had a credit card, you could get everything you needed to survive dropped off at your front door. But the next 75 years aren’t going to be like that; we’re going to need to return to the basic human experience of relying on the people around you. We’re going to need to rediscover that we’re a social species, which for Americans will be hard—at least since Reagan we’ve been told to think of ourselves first and foremost (it was his pal Margaret Thatcher who insisted “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women.”) And in the Musk/Trump age we’re constantly instructed to distrust everyone and everything, a corrosion that erodes the social fabric as surely as a rampaging river erodes a highway.
But it’s not impossible to change that. President Joe Biden has been frustratingly dunderheaded about approving new pipelines and oil wells, and hydrocarbon production has been soaring on his watch. He has been much better about trying to restore some sense of national unity—he has been trying to scale down national division by rebuilding left-behind economies, and also by appealing to our better angels. And those angels exist: The most hopeful book for our time remains Rebecca Solnit’s Paradise Built in Hell, which recounts how communities, whenever natural disaster strikes, pull together, just like Vermont this summer. It happens in cities as easily as in rural areas—maybe more easily, since cities are places where the gregarious gather.
An appeal to social trust is not an appeal to some airy idea of universal brotherhood. Vermont Digger, our local news service, had a reporter in a neighboring town yesterday, as it began to dig its way out of the flood. At a washed-out road crossing he encountered a pair of what I think you could only call hippies, trying to join a “Rainbow Family gathering” at a national forest campground nearby.
The two people—who went by the names Scooby Doo and Sparrow—said they had caught the first half of Dead & Company’s final tour before Sparrow’s school bus broke down in Alabama. This week they had traveled from Maine and spent the prior night camping elsewhere.
The duo had heard from two friends on Thursday night who were waiting for them at Texas Falls, estimating that dozens of people were there.
They were looking for dog food for their dog, Bhala, and thought they might have to try Killington or Middlebury.
No offense to Scooby, Sparrow, or certainly Bhala, but I’d rather have as a neighbor the next person the reporter encountered at the washed-out intersection..
Charlie Smith, an excavator, trucked loads of material to the washout in an effort to make the road passable.
“I’m trying to make it so people can get home, get groceries, go back to work,” he said. “It feels good to help people. That’s what we do.”
For Smith, the latest storm began with news that flood water had surrounded some of his equipment. He salvaged the gear Thursday night with minimal damage.
“This morning my dad called me at 5:30 and said ‘let’s get going,’” Smith recalled. He expected to go road by road throughout the day.
Neighborliness accompanied by skill in backhoe operation seems like a good combination for our moment in history. And I was even more reassured to get a mass email from the town clerk of my small burg. It outlined which roads were still closed but also reminded people that the evening’s nature talk was still on at the local school.
Please come join us for an evening of bugs after the sun goes down and stay as long as you’d like! We’ll attract the night-active insects to a white sheet in the woods, and you can learn about some of our local insects from Middlebury College Entomologist Greg Pask. Feel free to bring a flashlight or headlamp, and no bug spray please (we’re trying to attract the bugs!)
So make that neighborliness, backhoes, and a devotion to the world around us, which remains beautiful even this savage summer. We’re in a mess, but together we have some chance of working our way out of it.
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India’s Monsoon Fury Shows the Time for Climate Action Is Now
Let us seize this moment to make a difference, to take responsibility for our actions, and to pursue a lifestyle that is in harmony with the environment.
Jul 12, 2023
Climate change is no longer a distant threat lurking in the future. It is here, it is real, and it is staring us in the face. As extreme weather events become the new normal, it is high time we acknowledge the urgency of the situation and take immediate action to mitigate the catastrophic consequences. The recent monsoon fury in India, with its unprecedented rainfall, flash floods, and landslides, serves as a grim reminder of the impact of climate change on our lives.
The scientific community has been sounding the alarm for years, and now the evidence is undeniable. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall patterns, and increased frequency of extreme weather events are all consequences of global warming. The very fabric of our environment is unraveling before our eyes, and it is our responsibility to act.
Meteorologists and climate scientists attribute the current spell of heavy rains to a combination of factors, including the alignment of weather systems and changes in monsoon patterns.
The rising land and sea temperatures have enhanced the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture, leading to heavier and prolonged rainfall. The consequences are devastating, with floods and landslides wreaking havoc in various parts of the country.
Expert’s Take
According to Mahesh Palawat, Vice-President, Meteorology and Climate Change, Skymet Weather, “The ongoing spell of extremely heavy rains is due to the alignment of three weather systems. However, global warming-led changes in monsoon patterns have made a difference. There has been a constant rise in both land and sea temperatures, which has increased the capacity of the air to hold moisture for a longer time. Thus, the role of climate change in the increasing extreme weather events in India has been strengthening with each passing year.”
Global warming has played a significant role in intensifying these extreme events. The rising land and sea temperatures have enhanced the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture, leading to heavier and prolonged rainfall. The consequences are devastating, with floods and landslides wreaking havoc in various parts of the country.
Science Speaks
Numerous reports and research studies have confirmed the impact of climate change on Indian monsoons. But it’s not just the monsoon season that is affected; the effects of global warming extend to atmospheric and oceanic phenomena, further exacerbating the implications of climate change. El Niño, wildfires, warmer phases in the North Atlantic Ocean, and abnormal warming in the Arabian Sea all contribute to the intensification of extreme weather events.
The Ministry of Earth Sciences warns that monsoonal rainfall is projected to become more intense in the future, affecting larger areas due to increased atmospheric moisture content. The frequency of localized heavy rain occurrences has already significantly increased over central India. Greenhouse gas emissions, aerosols, atmospheric stability, and urbanization all play a role in these changes.
Evidence Is Clear
The evidence is clear: Human activities have influenced these changes in regional climate. The continuous rise in global surface and ocean temperatures has led to increased evaporation, amplifying the rainfall in the Indo-Gangetic plains. The relentless moisture feed from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea fuels the weather systems, resulting in extreme weather events.
Moreover, there are other global factors at play, such as Arctic amplification. The alarming rate of polar ice melt is affecting atmospheric circulation patterns, impacting the weather in mid-latitude and tropical regions. The interconnectedness of these phenomena highlights the need for further research and a comprehensive understanding of climate change’s far-reaching consequences.
The impacts of climate change are already visible, but the window of opportunity to prevent further devastation is narrowing.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already warned about the surge in extreme weather events due to global warming. India is projected to experience a 20% increase in extreme rainfall events, leading to floods, depressions, and more frequent cyclonic events. As temperatures rise, compound extreme events, previously rare, will become more common.
Parting Thoughts
It is imperative that we act now to address climate change and its repercussions. We cannot afford to be complacent any longer. Individual and collective actions are crucial in transitioning to a sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle. We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, embrace renewable energy sources, conserve water, and prioritize sustainable urban planning.
The impacts of climate change are already visible, but the window of opportunity to prevent further devastation is narrowing. We owe it to future generations to leave them a planet that is habitable and thriving. Let us seize this moment to make a difference, to take responsibility for our actions, and to pursue a lifestyle that is in harmony with the environment.
The time for action is now. Together, we can mitigate the effects of climate change and ensure a sustainable future for ourselves and the generations to come. Let us not wait for more disasters to strike. Let us act today for a better tomorrow.
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Climate Crisis ‘Out of Control’ as Global Temperature Breaks Record for 3rd Time in 4 Days
Thursday's record came after the revelation that the seven-day stretch ending Wednesday was also the hottest week in at least 44 years.
Jul 07, 2023
For the third time in just four days, the Earth sweated through its unofficial hottest day on record Thursday.
The average global temperature reached 17.23°C, or 63°F, on July 6, up from the record set Monday, surpassed Tuesday, and matched Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer. Thursday's record came after the revelation that the seven-day stretch ending Wednesday was also the hottest week in at least 44 years.
"Climate change is out of control," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in response to Monday's and Tuesday's records, as The Associated Press reported. "If we persist in delaying key measures that are needed, I think we are moving into a catastrophic situation."
Scientists attribute the high temperatures to a combination of global heating caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels and an El Niño event officially declared by the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization Tuesday.
"Such records are the predictable consequence of a short-term El Niño temperature boost coming on top of the long-term global warming trend due to mankind's greenhouse gas emissions."
Earth's temperature reached 17.01°C, or 62.62°F, Monday and then 17.18°C, or 62.9°F, Tuesday, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). While these temperatures are the hottest since record-keeping began in 1979, The Washington Post explained, data from ice cores and tree rings indicate that they haven't been experienced on Earth since the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were around 18 feet higher. The week ending Wednesday was also 0.08°F, or 0.04°C, warmer than any in the record books, according to AP.
"Such records are the predictable consequence of a short-term El Niño temperature boost coming on top of the long-term global warming trend due to mankind's greenhouse gas emissions," lead Berkeley Earth scientist Robert Rohde tweeted in response to Thursday's new record.
The University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer uses both temperature readings from the surface, air balloons, and satellites, along with NCEP forecast data, to provide daily average two-meter air temperatures, according to The Guardian.
The records it reports are considered "unofficial" by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) because they rely partly on computer models, AP explained, but the agency did not deny the impact of the climate emergency and El Niño on recent extremes.
"Although NOAA cannot validate the methodology or conclusion of the University of Maine analysis, we recognize that we are in a warm period due to climate change," NOAA said in a statement reported by AP.
There are also other indicators speaking to spiking temperatures: The European Union's Copernicus ECMWF ERA5 dataset put Monday's mean temperature at a record 16.88°C and Tuesday's at a new record temperature of 17.03°C.
June was also the warmest June on record, according to a report from the E.U.'s Copernicus Climate Change Service released Thursday, with temperatures more than 0.5°C above the 1991-2020 average. Sea surface temperatures also broke monthly records for both May and June, and Antarctic sea ice dwindled to 17% below average for a record low for June.
"We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Niño develops further and these impacts will extend into 2024," Chris Hewitt, WMO Director of Climate Services, said in a statement responding to the report. "This is worrying news for the planet."
Scientists predict that the record breaking will continue into July, which is usually the warmest month of the year.
"Chances are that the month of July will be the warmest ever, and with it the hottest month ever," Karsten Haustein, a research fellow in atmospheric radiation at Leipzig University, told The Guardian, clarifying that "ever" meant in the last 120,000 years.
"I've never seen anything like it. I've been having heart palpitations because of the heat. I'm starting to think seriously that I'm going to leave Timbuktu."
The records aren't just numbers. They have been felt in extreme heatwaves around the globe from Texas to China. Cities in China are opening air raid shelters to help people hide from heat that has already turned deadly, AP reported Friday, and temperatures in Beijing surpassed 35°C for more than nine days in a row for the first time since 1961.
Temperatures were also high in Timbuktu, Mali.
"Usually, at night it's a bit cool even during the hot season. But this year, even at night, it's been hot—I've never seen anything like it," 50-year-old Fatoumata Arby told AP. "I've been having heart palpitations because of the heat. I'm starting to think seriously that I'm going to leave Timbuktu."
Beyond high temperatures, the impacts of the climate emergency continue to be felt in other ways. In an update Thursday, Canadian officials said the country's record-breaking wildfire season—which has sent toxic smoke pouring across the border in recent weeks—continues, with nearly 5,000 people forced from their homes and more than 8.8 million hectares of forest burned, CBC News reported. That's nearly 11 times the average hectares burned in the last decade.
"This number is literally off the charts," Michael Norton, director of the Northern Forestry Centre with the Canadian Forest Service at NRCan, said during a press conference reported by Politico, "with at least three more months left in the active wildfire season."
Officials say the climate emergency is playing a major role in the unprecedented season.
"This summer, we are witnessing the effects of climate change first-hand as Canada continues to experience more intense and frequent severe weather events," Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said in a briefing reported by CBC News.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 50 people in two weeks, Al Jazeera reported Friday. The deluge comes a year after devastating flooding in Pakistan swallowed a third of the country and claimed more than 1,700 lives. Pakistan contributes less than 1% to global greenhouse gas emissions, but it is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, and scientists said that rising temperatures made last year's disaster more likely.
"Only when we bring carbon emissions to zero does the warming stop."
In response to news of broken records and weather extremes, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann said people should not be paralyzed with fear.
"Rather than being 'terrified' by this expected consequence of human-caused warming, we should be motivated to act—in particular, holding politicians accountable at the ballot box," he tweeted. "Only when we bring carbon emissions to zero does the warming stop."
There's a chance that living through this summer of extremes could help with that motivation.
"The issue of climate change doesn't often get its 15 minutes of fame. When it does, it's usually tied to something abstract like a scientific report or a meeting of politicians that most people can't relate to," George Mason University climate communications professor Ed Maibach told AP.
"Feeling the heat—and breathing the wildfire smoke, as so many of us in the Eastern U.S. and Canada have been doing for the past month—is a tangible shared public experience that can be used to focus the public conversation," he said.
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