If You Can't Stand The Heat....
or flood, or drought, then what are your options?
This question occurred to me, among other times, this July as I was moving to a new house within the city of Columbia, SC. I was lying exhausted on the parched lawn of the house we were moving from, having just completed the second full load of the largest truck UHaul rents and hoping darkening skies would provide rain to cool me on yet another hundred degree day. As with each of the five moves I've made since moving to the southeast it occurred in the middle of summer, and though we are not a family of hoarders we had furniture to fill a four bedroom house and then some, and a generous amount of necessities and indispensable non necessities collected over the years. Most of these moves were spaced out in time so that I had a general recollection of sweat and unpleasantness from the previous one, but then I recalled that eventually it was completed and so the next one must be endurable. This time, however, the move happened to fall during the warmest July on record in this already infamously hot city, and so truly tested my limits. A few weeks later when we lost electricity for a weekend during a slightly cooler period of 90 something degree days and still suffered without air conditioning, I wondered how people had survived such heat in the past, and whether they still could when most every year brings new local and global heat records. I wondered whether they will be able to for long in parts of the world where people survive already at the edge of human heat tolerance with unreliable electricity, or even entirely without it.
To those who argue that numbers and statistics can be manipulated to support any agenda, including climate change, I say look to the natural world. From the tropics to the poles, on land and in sea, climate change is pushing species and entire ecosystems beyond historic limits. From my childhood days fishing on the Pacific with my father I recall being awed by the amaranthine sea and the diverse beauty of the creatures we captured or watched pass by. I had the great fortune in later years to travel to different seas, and experience first hand the coral reefs that in books seemed impossibly beautiful. I knew then what a tremendous treasure they were, and can only believe that anyone who's experienced them first hand and sees now what is happening to some of the finest of them knows that inaction is not an option. The evidence is clear from the multitude of studies and reports I found (see below) over just a few weeks of searching that the relatively small less than one degree centigrade change in average global temperature we've experienced so far is already having drastic effects on the planet's ecology.
As difficult as this last summer was for me and my family, I think of the thousands in India who lost there lives and the hundreds of millions who suffered terribly through the country's two consecutive record breaking heat waves. I think of natives on Arctic seas who have been forced to flee villages they've occupied for generations due to the retreat of sea ice and snow that until recently provided access to food and protected their homes from the erosion of stormy seas, and I think of the first mammalian species declared extinct due to rising waters from a warming world. I wonder whether we rely too heavily on the most conservative predictions of scientists who, with characteristic scientists' tendency to use only the surest and most proven data in their models and calculations, may be reluctant to voice their most serious concern over what they suspect but can't yet prove from our incomplete knowledge of this complex world we inhabit.
Addendum: A very apropos story:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38805402
Climate:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201606
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201607
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/record-warmth-in-the-arctic-this-year/70000374
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/30/nasa-climate-change-warning-earth-temperature-warming
https://weather.com/science/nature/news/rising-ocean-temperatures-challenge
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/13/505434080/scientists-report-the-arctic-is-melting-even-more-rapidly
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/01/04/floods-natural-disasters-2016/96120150/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/arctic-maps-climate-change/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fbp20170110news-arcticdata&utm_campaign=Content&sf50231803=1
Columbia, SC weather:
http://www.wltx.com/news/local/hottest-columbia-july-on-record/285295999
http://www.weather.gov/cae/july2016Climate.html
https://weather.com/news/weather/news/record-warm-south-july-2016
Plant and animal effects from and adaptations to climate change:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sciencefair/2016/06/15/first-mammal-extinct-climate-change/85931592/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161110115540.htm
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/how-climate-change-is-hurting-ecosystems-across-the-globe/70000138
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/20/opinions/sutter-arctic-melting-george-divoky/index.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141002-walruses-climate-change-science-global-warming-animals-alaska/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020143224.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150904-polar-bears-dolphins-seals-climate-change/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-species-are-evolving-due-changing-climate-180953133/?no-ist
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/15-animals-facing-extinction-due-to-climate-change/70000220
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161212084646.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140506-climate-change-adaptation-evolution-coral-science-butterflies/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161031090032.htm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whales-fish-adapt-climate-induced-changes/
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/02/487938345/planning-for-the-future-of-a-park-where-the-trees-have-one-name
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/05/492713407/for-lizards-climate-change-is-a-deadly-and-complex-threat
http://www.audubon.org/news/climate-change-shifts-bird-migration-one-generation-time
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/landsat-satellite-sees-florida-mangroves-migrate-north/#.WABXBvkrLIU
http://www.reuters.com/video/2016/11/28/climate-change-deepens-thailands-fish-cr?videoId=370572430&videoChannel=118169
http://www.bbc.com/news/
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article120193173.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-38450228
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120116095527.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140527114909.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161031160445.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804065942.htm
https://www.infona.pl/resource/bwmeta1.element.elsevier-1fc6d1f3-0816-30f0-9f33-94d864c26a7b
Coral bleaching:
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/great-barrier-reef-queensland-australia-coral-bleaching-complete-ecosystem
https://www.buzzfeed.com/robstott/this-is-what-the-great-barrier-reef-looks-like-after-the-cor?utm_term=.ud0zy0yLm#.yfEgzRzwy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mass-global-coral-bleaching-wasnt-a-thing-30-years_us_57be32b1e4b00c54015c4678
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38127320
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/maldives/articles/maldives-devastated-by-coral-bleaching-as-2016-shapes-up-to-be-hottest-on-record/
http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2016/08/06/guam-coral-reefs-damaged-harmed-climate-change/88284082/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/21/coral-bleaching-event-now-biggest-in-history-and-about-to-get-worse
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scientists-take-on-great-barrier-reef-obituary_us_57fff8f1e4b0162c043b068f
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-oceans-idUSKCN11E1PA
Climate change causes coevolved species to become out of synch:
http://www.livescience.com/19679-climate-change-seasons-shift-mismatch.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Bees/bees3.php
http://www.ecowatch.com/plants-of-the-colorado-rockies-show-impact-of-climate-change-1881878993.html
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/12/bees-plants-pollination-climate-change-global-warming/1#.V_sVbPkrLIU
Climate change landscape effects:
http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/fzUZd7Z748TeHmB7p8cn/full/10.1146/annurev-marine-041911-111611
Agriculture and Climate change:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/09/22/french-wine-global-warming-weather/90120252/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/12/497578413/coffee-and-climate-change-in-brazil-a-disaster-is-brewing
India heat wave:
https://weather.com/safety/heat/news/deadly-southern-eastern-india-heat-wave-2016
https://thinkprogress.org/death-toll-rises-as-indias-heat-wave-breaks-records-c770951335de#.ph3fpbs3p
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/india-heat-wave-kills-thousands
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161215152126.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/world/asia/india-heat-wave.html?_r=0
http://time.com/4357909/india-rajasthan-heat-wave-temperatures-delhi-monsoon/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/12/15/climate-change-intensified-heat-waves/95431732/
Climate change impacts on people:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/27/487364060/in-alaskas-remote-towns-climate-change-is-already-leaving-many-hungry
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/27/485601554/visitors-to-a-shrinking-alaskan-glacier-get-a-lesson-on-climate-change
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-relocation-idUSKCN10S23Z
http://www.npr.org/2016/05/14/478040492/native-americans-relocation-from-louisiana-home-first-climate-change-refugees
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/15/492260099/outdated-fema-flood-maps-dont-account-for-climate-change
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKCN11K0BC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36989173
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.html?_r=2
http://www.npr.org/2017/01/04/505320391/louisiana-history-washes-away-as-sea-levels-rise-land-sinks
Something related to chew on:
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/10/01/495437158/climate-change-and-the-astrobiology-of-the-anthropocene
This question occurred to me, among other times, this July as I was moving to a new house within the city of Columbia, SC. I was lying exhausted on the parched lawn of the house we were moving from, having just completed the second full load of the largest truck UHaul rents and hoping darkening skies would provide rain to cool me on yet another hundred degree day. As with each of the five moves I've made since moving to the southeast it occurred in the middle of summer, and though we are not a family of hoarders we had furniture to fill a four bedroom house and then some, and a generous amount of necessities and indispensable non necessities collected over the years. Most of these moves were spaced out in time so that I had a general recollection of sweat and unpleasantness from the previous one, but then I recalled that eventually it was completed and so the next one must be endurable. This time, however, the move happened to fall during the warmest July on record in this already infamously hot city, and so truly tested my limits. A few weeks later when we lost electricity for a weekend during a slightly cooler period of 90 something degree days and still suffered without air conditioning, I wondered how people had survived such heat in the past, and whether they still could when most every year brings new local and global heat records. I wondered whether they will be able to for long in parts of the world where people survive already at the edge of human heat tolerance with unreliable electricity, or even entirely without it.
To those who argue that numbers and statistics can be manipulated to support any agenda, including climate change, I say look to the natural world. From the tropics to the poles, on land and in sea, climate change is pushing species and entire ecosystems beyond historic limits. From my childhood days fishing on the Pacific with my father I recall being awed by the amaranthine sea and the diverse beauty of the creatures we captured or watched pass by. I had the great fortune in later years to travel to different seas, and experience first hand the coral reefs that in books seemed impossibly beautiful. I knew then what a tremendous treasure they were, and can only believe that anyone who's experienced them first hand and sees now what is happening to some of the finest of them knows that inaction is not an option. The evidence is clear from the multitude of studies and reports I found (see below) over just a few weeks of searching that the relatively small less than one degree centigrade change in average global temperature we've experienced so far is already having drastic effects on the planet's ecology.
As difficult as this last summer was for me and my family, I think of the thousands in India who lost there lives and the hundreds of millions who suffered terribly through the country's two consecutive record breaking heat waves. I think of natives on Arctic seas who have been forced to flee villages they've occupied for generations due to the retreat of sea ice and snow that until recently provided access to food and protected their homes from the erosion of stormy seas, and I think of the first mammalian species declared extinct due to rising waters from a warming world. I wonder whether we rely too heavily on the most conservative predictions of scientists who, with characteristic scientists' tendency to use only the surest and most proven data in their models and calculations, may be reluctant to voice their most serious concern over what they suspect but can't yet prove from our incomplete knowledge of this complex world we inhabit.
Addendum: A very apropos story:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38805402
Climate:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201606
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201607
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/record-warmth-in-the-arctic-this-year/70000374
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/30/nasa-climate-change-warning-earth-temperature-warming
https://weather.com/science/nature/news/rising-ocean-temperatures-challenge
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/13/505434080/scientists-report-the-arctic-is-melting-even-more-rapidly
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/01/04/floods-natural-disasters-2016/96120150/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/arctic-maps-climate-change/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fbp20170110news-arcticdata&utm_campaign=Content&sf50231803=1
Columbia, SC weather:
http://www.wltx.com/news/local/hottest-columbia-july-on-record/285295999
http://www.weather.gov/cae/july2016Climate.html
https://weather.com/news/weather/news/record-warm-south-july-2016
Plant and animal effects from and adaptations to climate change:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/sciencefair/2016/06/15/first-mammal-extinct-climate-change/85931592/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161110115540.htm
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/how-climate-change-is-hurting-ecosystems-across-the-globe/70000138
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/20/opinions/sutter-arctic-melting-george-divoky/index.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141002-walruses-climate-change-science-global-warming-animals-alaska/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020143224.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150904-polar-bears-dolphins-seals-climate-change/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-species-are-evolving-due-changing-climate-180953133/?no-ist
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/15-animals-facing-extinction-due-to-climate-change/70000220
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161212084646.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140506-climate-change-adaptation-evolution-coral-science-butterflies/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161031090032.htm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whales-fish-adapt-climate-induced-changes/
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/02/487938345/planning-for-the-future-of-a-park-where-the-trees-have-one-name
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/05/492713407/for-lizards-climate-change-is-a-deadly-and-complex-threat
http://www.audubon.org/news/climate-change-shifts-bird-migration-one-generation-time
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/landsat-satellite-sees-florida-mangroves-migrate-north/#.WABXBvkrLIU
http://www.reuters.com/video/2016/11/28/climate-change-deepens-thailands-fish-cr?videoId=370572430&videoChannel=118169
http://www.bbc.com/news/
http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article120193173.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-38450228
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120116095527.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140527114909.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161031160445.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804065942.htm
https://www.infona.pl/resource/bwmeta1.element.elsevier-1fc6d1f3-0816-30f0-9f33-94d864c26a7b
Coral bleaching:
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/great-barrier-reef-queensland-australia-coral-bleaching-complete-ecosystem
https://www.buzzfeed.com/robstott/this-is-what-the-great-barrier-reef-looks-like-after-the-cor?utm_term=.ud0zy0yLm#.yfEgzRzwy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mass-global-coral-bleaching-wasnt-a-thing-30-years_us_57be32b1e4b00c54015c4678
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38127320
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/maldives/articles/maldives-devastated-by-coral-bleaching-as-2016-shapes-up-to-be-hottest-on-record/
http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2016/08/06/guam-coral-reefs-damaged-harmed-climate-change/88284082/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/21/coral-bleaching-event-now-biggest-in-history-and-about-to-get-worse
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scientists-take-on-great-barrier-reef-obituary_us_57fff8f1e4b0162c043b068f
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-oceans-idUSKCN11E1PA
Climate change causes coevolved species to become out of synch:
http://www.npr.org/templates/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7089/full/nature04539.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7089/full/nature04539.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Bees/bees3.php
http://www.ecowatch.com/plants-of-the-colorado-rockies-show-impact-of-climate-change-1881878993.html
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/12/bees-plants-pollination-climate-change-global-warming/1#.V_sVbPkrLIU
Climate change landscape effects:
http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/fzUZd7Z748TeHmB7p8cn/full/10.1146/annurev-marine-041911-111611
Agriculture and Climate change:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/09/22/french-wine-global-warming-weather/90120252/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/12/497578413/coffee-and-climate-change-in-brazil-a-disaster-is-brewing
India heat wave:
https://weather.com/safety/heat/news/deadly-southern-eastern-india-heat-wave-2016
https://thinkprogress.org/death-toll-rises-as-indias-heat-wave-breaks-records-c770951335de#.ph3fpbs3p
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/india-heat-wave-kills-thousands
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161215152126.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/world/asia/india-heat-wave.html?_r=0
http://time.com/4357909/india-rajasthan-heat-wave-temperatures-delhi-monsoon/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/12/15/climate-change-intensified-heat-waves/95431732/
Climate change impacts on people:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/27/487364060/in-alaskas-remote-towns-climate-change-is-already-leaving-many-hungry
http://www.npr.org/2016/07/27/485601554/visitors-to-a-shrinking-alaskan-glacier-get-a-lesson-on-climate-change
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-relocation-idUSKCN10S23Z
http://www.npr.org/2016/05/14/478040492/native-americans-relocation-from-louisiana-home-first-climate-change-refugees
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/15/492260099/outdated-fema-flood-maps-dont-account-for-climate-change
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-idUSKCN11K0BC
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36989173
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.html?_r=2
http://www.npr.org/2017/01/04/505320391/louisiana-history-washes-away-as-sea-levels-rise-land-sinks
Something related to chew on:
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/10/01/495437158/climate-change-and-the-astrobiology-of-the-anthropocene
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