It was a matter of some interest to me that on September 19, 2023 there were two large TORNADOES in China. Not the little cyclones that you see in big storms pretty much everywhere and never give a second thought, no, these were “Wizard of Oz” sized tornadoes, like three on the five scale. (China uses the same scale as the United States, so I guess the Chinese weather service wasn’t as surprised as I was.) These came with enormous amounts of rain and new flooding, adding more misery to what is already probably called “the Summer of Huge Fucking Floods.”
No less fascinating was the twenty or so inches of rain that fell in a day on a large but focused part of Libya, making a mess of a coastal city and destroying two earthen dams in the mountains above the city. The resulting water/ mud event washed away most of the city and the reporting of the death count was disturbingly imprecise. The spokesman said that about ten thousand people were dead, and another ten thousand were “still missing.” He assumed that many or most of the missing had been washed out to sea along with all of that mud. When the numbers get that round, it’s obvious that no one has any idea of the real casualty figures.
Huge amounts of rain in a limited time within a tight location is no longer considered exceptional. It has become a regular thing.
Warehouses are filling up with new stock footage of rapidly moving flash floods in a wide variety of settings. There are also large areas on multiple continents where it hasn’t rained at all for years. Climate driven migration has begun in earnest. Then there are the fires. The starving migrants must be lucky to avoid running into one of the many large fires. Crops have begun to fail, not only because of the droughts, but also because average annual temperatures have gone up a couple of degrees. A warming climate invites new insect pests. That’s no surprise, I suppose, but did anyone else read the predictions that a warming climate would interfere with crop propagation? I read that one, but I wasn’t supposed to live to see it. Only five years ago they were still talking about effects that we would see in 2030 or later. More imprecision.
Ocean temperatures are raising some eyebrows among the scientific community. Way too low in the North Atlantic, threatening to stall the Gulf Stream, and way too high around the West Indies and Florida, threatening stronger hurricanes. You needn’t look far for bad climate news.
Who remembers the way that George W. Bush and his “proud to know nothing” friends were laughing at a temperature rise of only a few degrees. Remember the asshole who brought a snowball into a meeting of the Senate? They, you know who they are, had a good laugh at that. Climate change was a hoax! Or, if it were a real thing, it was the Chinese trying to destroy the American economy. I don’t hear so much laughing now. If it was a Chinese idea, it backfired. The naysayers seem to be holding their tongues, but they have no proposals to offer in mitigation. One of our great statesmen was asked how he feels about the current state of climate change. “Autumn,” he said, “it’s called autumn.”
The only people who are happy about the situation are the lobbyists for the fossil fuel industries. Those companies just want to maximize profits while they can. Time to cash out boys! I’m sure that they have proper bunkers prepared, and food stocks put away for emergencies. It was fun to read about the plans they have to protect themselves from their own security forces. Now there’s an interesting conundrum: they obviously need the security forces to protect their compounds or bunkers from regular people, but then it’s also obvious that the security forces will see their own best interest in slaughtering the rich people and taking the security for themselves. Don’t worry, no beautiful women will be harmed in the course of these takeovers. I’ve already seen multicolored maps showing what areas may fare better, and what areas will soon be musts to avoid. The entire South West of the United States is a death in progress, with colossal heat waves in effect and water disappearing faster than a magician’s assistant.
I guess it’s good that people in every demographic seem to be getting the message that urgent action is required, but the people who actually have the power to alter our destructive habits are either going along with the wait and see thing or actively getting in on the cashing out thing.
It all strikes me as doom writ large, but that’s my nature anyway. So don’t listen to me. It’ll all be fine!
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