Here we have a collection of climate related experiences that we talk about. We are not degreed-scientists, like Ph. D’s. We are citizen scientists. We have experienced shit.
Freezing cold. One day “normal” winter. The next day, the temps take a nose-dive. Polar vortex they say. Frozen precipitation. Plummeting temps caused immediate pipe bursts. Trees down everywhere. Our whole state’s power grid came close to total failure. Water and natural gas lines froze. People froze. Pets froze. Vegetation devastated. Finally the power comes back. The repairs took months.
Extreme heat where you can fry eggs on the sidewalk. Power goes out. What do you do. Chill out and hope it comes back on before the house inside gets unbearable and outside is like hell on earth? Get in the pool? It’s temps are already dangerous. Can’t do that. Find some shade? Let me know how that works out for you. Stay hydrated. Get in the car and ride around with the A/C on. You run out of gas. Too bad. No power, no gas. Who has a generator. I’ll buy you a meal… when the power comes back on. That is scary.
Extreme heat goes on year after year and you get drought.
Then there’s the flooding and the hurricanes. Oh and tornadoes. And wildfires. Shall I go on?
I think back. When did I experience these events as a kid? I only remember a very few. Truly. Heat like this? Never. Icy conditions, never like we’ve seen. Only rare remarkable snows. Sleet events maybe once in the winter but not the dangerously low temps. Not the power losses. One ice storm. Some flooding rains occasionally, but we live near the ocean. Fires? In 2011. That was scary. But what our friends in California now are experiencing? No. Not like this.
I keep saying that this isn’t looking too good. The whole aspect of people denying this. I think that’s a human defense mechanism. The “this is normal, we just don’t get the time scale” crowd. “Yeah. Ask the dinosaurs…”, I say.
It’s going to be adapt or die. Sad thing right now, the moneyed people who are trying to innovate on adaptation are not thinking about the rest of us. They are thinking about living on Mars.
To read more about thoughts on the environment go here.
Good luck with that.