The new normal.
Freeze your ass off one week. Flooding rains the next week. Sunny and up in the 70’s for a while. All in December, or January, or February even? Then there’s the summertime hell on earth. Here we are, as predicted (or threatened) by climatologists in the 1970’s
That is how it has been here lately over the past few years. When I thought we lived in a rather temperate place, I really didn’t use sweaters – layers yes, but nothing heavy. Now I freeze and need the thicker layers. But wait! Keep those shorts out! The next week you might get up into spring weather – sometimes even summer temps! Wow.
I’m not going to explain it here. If you’re a denier, you wouldn’t want to read it and probably wouldn’t understand it because you flunked your science and math classes and that’s your excuse – to deny anything that embarrasses you deep down. Poor thing. So for those who are curious, look it up – the why’s and how’s of this are by now mainstream news. It’s no mystery.
And people continue to argue about it – and because many are very selfish, they defend their current opinions – but, sadly, as we watch this get worse, we know that their little kids are going to have to deal with this.
Their flooded neighborhoods today, after this not as bad as it could have been rain event – that will happen more and more. Those folks go, “what drought”. Wait until summer and the temps go through the roof. All that water is gone. It won’t take long. Groundwater and underground aquifers under stress. Last summer you heard about towns out in the desert that had no water any longer. Zip. No water. We cannot live without water. People had to move and leave their homes. That’s what happened during the Dust Bowl days – ghost towns they called them. They are still around. Go to one, and think about how that happened.
Those trees that are dead now – the crops – all the frozen stuff – and you blame some government official for food prices going up. Duh. No crops (or not that many), is short supply. If you still want your avocados, or your fruit – pay the prices, folks – it has to come from a long way away. That costs moo-lah. When you deny entry into the USA and crops go bad because there are not enough pickers (seasonal workers), hello stupid idiots! Guess what! Supply-demand – your food prices just went up! Basic economics, people… Oh yeah, you didn’t take that in school. Right. Or you flunked the class? Too bad.
Yep – environmental science tells all. Our weather affects EVERYTHING. It’s all connected.
It’s getting to be a regular thing. We adjust our expectations.
Following episodes of heavy “atmospheric rivers” flooding in California, extreme cold across the Northern States, an ice storm that has paralyzed central Texas, after a bizarre Christmas freeze across the US, that even impacted Niagara Falls, now there are blizzards across the entire top-half of the United States – including California, and even dipping down into So Cal.
Many thousands of people across the USA without power today.
Early Summer temperatures across the bottom portion – where we have trees budding, wild flowers coming out, and confusion amongst the critters. Yep, you got it. Climate change is with us. We repeat that over and over in this blog.
This is NOT normal, ladies and gentlemen…
Miss Gabrielle visited New Zealand and left a hell of a calling card…
The country is suffering the most extreme weather in their history, and they now are just trying to keep up with making roads passable so that normal commercial traffic can get through to bring food, medical supplies, and essentials to every place that normally takes deliveries. Their supply chain is busted. Their PM says it will take years to build new roads. These are on areas that have been damaged previously with unprecedented weather events that have caused historic floods, landslides (called slips there), and destruction. Not two weeks later, heavy rains were again forecast and are in progress. This is three events in a row.
One cause highlighted has been their forestry industry’s practice of slash cutting – that is, cutting and leaving trees and debris to just be – whereby when it rains torrentially, these bio-masses after having dried, are light and float into the rivers, causing “debris blocks” that make flooding worse. What is left is heavy lifting for some emergency response groups to come in and clean up.
Again, we see a commercial entity making messes and not being responsible to clean up after themselves. I would imagine their mothers are going “tsk-tsk! Told you that you should clean up your room!”
This happens all over the world, particularly where natural resources in remote spots are being exploited and “nobody’s watching” they think. Well, well. Enter satellite imagery. You can’t hide anymore. The destruction of forests, and their natural settings is taking its toll.
What we have happening is that the commercial part (making money) is primary to everything else. The caring for the environment part is something that these resource miners have railed against historically. You know the drivel: “too many restrictions!” “too much bureaucracy!” “it’s too expensive!” Well, yes, it is extremely expensive, but not in ways that these people think. Selfish to the core. Don’t care. Don’t think it affects them. Until it does.
And now it is. These groups will find that now they will have to pay more to operate. It may start in this tiny beautiful country. But this may spread to other places. Impact is everything.
I wouldn’t buy any property that wasn’t on a hilltop right now, and not on a cliff – but definitely, riverside, no way.
And then there are more earthquakes shaking the European – Middle-East areas and these are not small.
Ancient buildings in Turkey and Syria along with modern structures have been destroyed, killing thousands of people across the region. Aftershocks have continued to cause further destruction. Getting people out, if they can be found, is a very large and difficult challenge. These are once in several hundred years occurrences that geophysicists cannot predict accurately. There can be rumbles for years, that amount to just that – but then the pressure builds and the big ones happen.
Along with the weather events, recent war efforts by Russia’s Putin, these seem like the marks of end times.
February, 2023 – it’s been a month...
The polar vortex strikes again. Hi Eliot.
So, it’s happened again. We get this big-ass blast of cold air that because the Arctic is warming, is pushing deeper into the southern climes closer to the Equator. You can read all about it here in Science.
In the deep southern states, this doesn’t occur very often, but as of now, has occurred more frequently – two since 2021 began the year. That’s scary. Lots of people, critters, plants, and stuff are affected by this and not in a good way.
What I am wondering is will climate change deniers ever wake up? It really is a case of “we can’t fix stupid”. Those driving the two-story pick-em-up trucks and getting into arguments in defense of the oil companies destruction of the lands where they have drilled for decades. See the stories out there about “orphan wells”. See the stories about the earthquakes happening out in the West Texas – Southeast New Mexico areas that have never had earthquakes before due to saltwater injection and fracking. Yes, these are not teeny temblors, these are over 5.x in magnitude.
Why do these people continue to deny? Money. Probably, that is the most important thing to note. It’s not rocket psychology! Anyhow. That’s the report.
December 2022.
There is no PLANet B.
Now it’s 2022. Yep, this climate change emergency isn’t going away. Record temperatures. Wildfires already starting to burn. It’s only April. In December of 2021, we had record high temperatures and a false spring. Then some lows, and all the buds froze. Next, there came the wacky yo-yo weather with the storm fronts between the extremes. Tornadoes.
Not so moderated as in the past, we recognize that things with our environment “aren’t quite right” – some of us that is… Some people prefer to be ostriches, going in for that “meh, whatever” attitude. Until…
We were fearing for another deep freeze. There was a threat but, it wasn’t as severe. The forecasters continue to tell us that this trend we’re seeing is going to be catastrophic. But people are more focused on the here and now, they do not care to think about changing their habits.
Why? Because people can’t see it right before their very eyes. The polar vortex events are big clues, but unless these happen repeatedly, people are slow on the uptake.
Polar ice is melting. This is a fact. This means more dark water exposed to the sun which heats up. Just like when you wear that black shirt outside in the summer – what happens? You get hot. You maybe even get sunburned. You go, “???? but, I had a shirt on!!!!” Ask a dermatologist!
How did the polar ice melt so much? CO2 heats up the atmosphere. They call it the “greenhouse effect”. We’ve been learning about this in earth science ever since forever (at least I have). What’s a greenhouse? Why do we have greenhouses? In case you don’t know, they are purposed to keep the air warm(er) so plants can grow when it’s cold and freezing outside… Get a clue.
Large manufacturing and transportation are the main culprits. Aircraft. Cars. Big trucks. Then there are animals and methane emissions. Other emissions from burning fossil fuels. Very nasty stuff if you have no choice but to breathe it.
The corporations that are generating a lot of the CO2 and other toxic elements and chemicals that are polluting the planet have the capacity to change things but they love money too much (that’s a disease that nobody speaks of – “the money disease”).
It’s a real mess, folks.
Individual choices are important.
Yes, recycle. Drive your car less, not more. Ride a bicycle or walk if you can… Collect water for watering plants. Hey, today, I took our dog’s water (icky) that I was going to change and watered plants with it (hey, more nutrients for plants! yay!), then put new water in the bowl. Stuff like that helps the macro by doing micro efforts – they all add up. Turn off lights. Don’t use as much heat – wear a sweater! Turn up the AC so it doesn’t kick on so much.
There are small things that we can all do. It’s not too early or too late to take individual action.
April 2022
A new report announced today. We’re in deep do-do or else, we must get used to eating dirt. That is all.
…
Seriously, things are not looking good sooner than the experts assessed, not long ago. (over 1000+ scientists collaborating).
It will be too hot for crops to grow, so animals can’t eat anything, so they will die and people, because they need food and water will not be able to live here on earth, and this is supposed to happen by 2040.
That’s not that long, when you consider the great time “accelerometer” that goes as you age faster and faster…. (both goes faster and you age faster). Let’s say that this heat is not my imagination and places like New Zealand may continue to have very weird weather causing drought and then butt-loads of rain, which causes landslides, etc. California knows this problem as do other places seeing wildfires. It’s serious stuff. And no, Donald, you can’t “disbelieve it away” because you don’t want it to be so. You can’t make it into some sort of alternate reality from your own.
The economics is interesting – more air conditioning costs more resources – that’s just for comfort, if you can afford it – but, people die when it is too hot outside – they can’t get cool – their internal temperatures go up – they call it heat stress, then they have heat stroke because the brain overheats – not pretty. No trees, no shade. Think Mars, or the Moon…
Then, of course, eventually, the atmosphere is destroyed so, there is no layer to help the insulation from the sun’s radiation during the day, and the lack thereof during the night – hot hot days, cold cold nights – barren landscape… JUST LIKE THE MOON, FOOL! duh.
So, do an experiment. Set your oven to 90 degrees. Put your hand in it. Begin to raise the temperature until it reaches about 115. Now, how long can you leave your hand there without it getting a little uncomfortable? Much more than that? You will have some significant discomfort. I lived out in West Texas where it reaches 115+ in the summer. It is not comfortable. Even air-con doesn’t work very well.
Ask people who live in Phoenix. What do people who can do in the summer? Leave. Yeah, that’s how it is managed.
OK. So, watch this space.
I’m worried about my grandson. He will not be that old in 2040… Gosh, that really sucks.
2020
Here We Are in the Years
A long time ago, Neil Young wrote a song called, “Here We are In The Years”. We listened then to the quaint tune, with the attitude, as it was back then, that the message was diametrically opposed to the sound of the music – the warnings about the future were as true then as they are proving out to be today.
Yes, here we are. Heeded warnings, despite the attempts to follow them by some, grow larger and the driver – as it has been – is the focus on grabbing the cash at every opportunity no matter whether it hurts large numbers of people, born and unborn, or is cruel and unusual, it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore in this populist trend, where anger-driven frustrations support the most outlandish people who have grabbed leadership positions and taken away liberties, yet extended their own in order to do what? To get maximum attention.
Here we are. Storms coming more often. Stronger. To areas where no storms have come before. Lots of people getting hurt, losing their homes, some their lives, and their livelihoods. Ten years after the great funk of the economy, people have not learned – people are worse off (the majority of them) – struggling to just keep heads above water (some literally), and the giant wads of cash have moved further into the hands of fewer people.
Support for this craven idiot who sits in La Casa Blanca from who you would think are intelligent people, is all about maximizing or clinging to their wad of cash. Some are wise. Some sit and think, that this will all blow over at some point, if that idiot does not self-destruct. Then what? If that happens, the future looks a bit fuzzy. The big question is: is he a lively puppet, or is he the whirling dervish, completely in control of being out of control? Yes, that is a good question.
In the past, where we had some pretty ludicrous leadership, who now looks like a sensible guy in comparison – and makes the comments about the idiot that indicate so – the feeling that we had back then was, “what are this guy and his cronies doing?” The wars in the Middle-East, getting cranked up – at the back of most of our minds, it was all about the petroleum, and all about that wad of cash that they thought they could go in and grab. Today, that seems like child’s play. Yet, now, that former commander looks like he was maybe a bit of a puppet, but he reflects that this guy is a horror show, by saying “That’s some weird shit!” as he sat and watched the inauguration. And that “shit” has grown weirder by the minute, which has driven him to speak about that, as well, through time.
Here we sit and watch lots of true damage being done – the list is growing. One outrage after another. The courts cannot seem to contain him. He fights every day to fight another day. He lies, he sets cruel policies, he sends out messages at all hours of the night and day and breaks away totally from the governance by avoiding all existing processes and procedures. Because he says he can and no one says he cannot. The legal scholars and those around him just cannot seem to decide.
Can they impeach him? Will they? If they do, what then? Is he beneficial to them, enough to “put up with this for the duration” in order to keep “their strong hold”? That future potential was never planned out, because it was not ever considered to be a future potential – “heartbeat away” ? Think of those prospects for a minute…
Yes, it is undoubtedly the most troublesome situation of our history. It’s going to be up to the people who will get off their behinds and go vote against them to get these ineffective, damaging so-in-so’s out of the stronghold of control.
Do they fear this? Probably not. Where we live has been extremely red for as long as anyone can remember. Just over the county line, not so much. The mindsets are very much like being a sports fan of a certain team – or it’s like a religion – being a “Republican” is an “ism” – there is no thinking involved, no analysis of whether this is really a sound platform or doctrine – hell, most people who are can hardly explain what the platform is, it’s so splintered. The “Democrat” situation is pretty much the same.
I, personally, am confounded at these, but gut-feeling wise, for me, it is hard to subscribe to a “Republican” mindset – not as it is today – it is “racists in sheep’s’ clothing” and truly “wolves at the door” – to the extreme right, these are revolutionaries a la Bannon and that scary kid that helps the Idiot, who is effectively a White Supremacist. We don’t even know what to call that flavor. I suppose I could go with John McCain’s flavor, but definitely not Ted Cruz and the Tea Party’s flavor. The rest are gutless, spineless wind socks. Yes, this is not “me” and how I feel.
The Democrats are no better. There is the Bernie crew – not the strongest and is idealistic such that this will not appeal to many – some great planks, but some others, not so much – not well thought out and articulated and certainly, the voice of these – definitely downgrades the potential that his effect will be positive. Well, let’s just say that the Clinton’s need to remain deeply in the background. Their ideas are good, but somehow, their reputation is in such bad shape that they will never be helpful.
Who else is leading? You have to think back about how Bill Clinton suddenly emerged – and you hope that someone bright will line up, but then – you just don’t see it. Joe? Probably not strong enough. My sentiments for this party are really not positive. They really seem like a lot of whiners, and their effectiveness, like the people on the other side of the aisle, is damaged.
Someone like Barack Obama needs to rise up – someone who is sensible sounding and not too extreme. Someone who can win. Stephen Colbert? Oprah? One might say not, but then Ronald Reagan came from the entertainment world – so did Arnold – it’s do-able… Just saying.
Independents are not yet strong enough to win an election. Probably will not ever be. They tend to dilute the underdog of the two major parties and therefore do more harm than good. Idealistic and not insightful, they have not demonstrated any true viability. Through history, parties have tried to emerge into the big sphere, but have not been successful. The money is not there. Money drives it all, unfortunately.
The one phenomenon brewing and rising is new, younger candidates are running and winning. More women are running and winning. These are interesting areas to watch. It would make sense to have the 30-somethings begin to take the controls. The vision of the future under this idiot at the helm just has to be yanked and replaced with one that presents more sustainability, that understands that although negotiations are at the core of public policy, domestic and foreign, they do not need to be “reality TV” style, where some blow-hard ass-clown runs roughshod over everyone and everything.
The relationships sour, and establishing long-term, strong relationships with partners, no matter what, are key to addressing hard and complex issues that continue to mount in the world. This guy doesn’t even appear to be able to read or string words into complete sentences.
The reference of the hurricane: A storm is coming, there is data that is available. You need good interpreters, reliable and objective. There is real danger potential to lives and property. Anyone who has ever been through a hurricane or major flooding event knows this. What do you tell people?
You say, “Hey! A big-ass tree fell on my house. It knocked a hole in my roof that was nearly two yards big. Rain came into my house and soaked the carpet, and the walls. It smelled to high heaven and the people who make a business out of getting this back to normal had to come in and remove the toxic liquid from everything. We ourselves ahead of that had to pull up the carpet and drag it to the street. It was heavy, no doubt toxic, and smelled like you can’t describe. There was no power for two weeks. Mosquitoes were everywhere. There was nothing to say but we had to survive it.” After about eight to nine months, we got most of our house back to normal. For some people, they were not as lucky. It still cost us money, despite having insurance, but at least we had the right kind of insurance to address the issues. For some people, they didn’t and they did not get through it so well.
Today we have hurricanes and fires happening with great regularity, more often. There is data. There are forecasters who are scientists. Yet, we have a backlash of unbelievers who despite that it is right under their noses, they still say, “Oh, this is normal!” Maybe it is some sort of normal on the geologic timescale, but there is no reference for this. We don’t have another planet out there that we can study that has been through this to which we can refer as being a “pattern” of reference. Sorry, that dog won’t hunt.
Also, in the background, are people who are trying to make some bucks off of this storm and any other environmental disaster. Entrepreneurs. Big business. The news media. Lots of folks trying to capitalize off of these events.
You have the “weather media” – helpful? Sometimes. Sometimes not so much. They make fools of themselves if they carry their “entertainment” component to the extreme as in our weatherman “actor” of recent days – it looked like a spoof, because it was – but guess what, now people will watch to see if they can catch these guys out, again – always attracting eyeballs to screens – for their commercial sponsors, the bent towards marketing is strong (remember it is all about grabbing the most cash as possible). Is it helping the public? Probably not as much as the government weather service’s warnings. Better to go for the drab forecasts that probably give better guidance than these goofy people with the weather media… Sad to say.
Here is the common denominator: the money grab. Despite the fact that we have the narcissist in chief who really is focused on sucking every bit of attention, negative or positive – doesn’t matter – it points out that the need for money, the addiction to lots of money, and other areas of related interest seems to outweigh the need to have a sensible framework for governing our large country right now, as well as someone who can build the relationships beyond the capitalistic aspects to enable solving world-level – planetary problems.
I watch science fiction shows that deal with this at beyond the planet level – it’s not a stretch to imagine the frailty of the human race and how difficult survival will become here. We live in little enclaves and duck our heads under the covers whenever we can. The enclaves are becoming more dangerous, unfortunately. We have threats from within to deal with, as well as external threats. Now we have imaginary threats that suck lots of resources used at the whim of a crazy guy sitting as commander of the country.
Building walls. Jailing children. Even torturing them. Sending people who have been here for decades to their country of birth when they may not have ever been there since they were infants, forcing them into leaving their homes, into involuntarily abandoning their jobs and families without reasonable assurances of ever being able to return – being sent into dangerous places where they know no one, and have no place to go, where authorities may potentially charge them with crimes, without any assurance of avoiding death in these dangerous circumstances.
The thought that a piece of the country’s foundation of assuring the asylum from treachery and horrible circumstances for those fleeing horrific situations, is being torn away because of a seventy-something who was raised to be a kingpin and operate within the fringes of legality – he is imposing his will and whimsy. He is a man who was raised as a racist and hates people who are not of his same ilk, who has a tremendous disrespect for women, who is so emotionally dysfunctional that he has the potential to effectively destroy the planet, if people around him do not provide distractions and take his attention away from doing dire things. This is the drunk uncle at the wheel of the vehicle that is our country.
What would happen if they were unable to do wrest the controls away from him in time to avert a true cataclysmic event – if his will overrode their attempts to keep him from doing what he thinks he can do whenever he pleases? We just don’t like to think about it.
Locally, more concrete is being poured over arable land that poses the issues of more flooding when we have big rain events. The memory of Harvey is quick to fade. The people who grab the money are quick to ignore warnings that what they do will only make future problems with floods worse. What happens in the day to day, comes and goes for these people. Maybe they do not care because, actually to them, it is all about them – not about what’s outside when the open the door after the storm has passed. They think, “Someone will clean this up… We just have to wait it out.” Sadly, this is probably true. Trying to avert this by better preparation is to them, not worth the chunk it would take away from their wads of cash – in other words, they can’t see the ROI.
Begs the question: What is the answer? Keep calm and carry on. Undoubtedly, we will be working on those problems and will be back with something in a few… Here we are in the years. Still here. For now.
September 15, 2018
The River it Runneth… The Fishies…not so much. Well, they don’t like it when the temperature goes UP down UP down Up down. We call that “whiplash weather”…
Standing by a river on the bank, going up and down it, for six hours, day one. Temperature, “about 50F”. Wore a thin tee-shirt, inside a thin wool hoodie, inside a rain jacket, waders on, wool socks. Comfy.
Next day: Temperature, “rose up to about 78F” (do the math)”. Wore same thin tee-shirt as day before (why not? it didn’t smell, because the day before, I didn’t sweat~!), inside a thin fishing shirt, inside a rain jacket. By noon, I was sweating buckets! Took off the rain jacket. Still sweated buckets, even wading in cool water, all day long. even got sunburned! Drenched in sweat!
Poor fishies – imagine that they feel this, too! No wonder they were NOT biting a thing. Hunkered down under a rock in the cooler lower layers of the river, no doubt. If this is not strange, what is? Did I say it was December 31st? Yup. The temperatures, they swingeth. Whiplash weather.
January 1st – 2017
Halloween coming. Mid-October. Indian Summer. Highs in the 90’s. Zombies coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
It’s frightful. Not too many years ago, I was fretting because there was a freeze warning and the pilot on the heating system was not on. It isn’t just that. It’s the shocking realization that there are people who actually live in tiny paradigms where they do not acknowledge change or have very different perceptions about it.
What I learned in school very early is that weather is made by certain physical principles involving the basics of heat, pressure, temperature, and thermodynamics — oh, and electricity! Nothing has changed about that. Technology and the ability to analyze information better has changed, and improved how climate scientists can better predict weather based on understanding the numbers better.
Yet, based on recent events with Hurricane Matthew, they still do not have perfect modeling that can outsmart the unpredictable factors such as how a storm decides which way to turn, or how much rain will come out of a storm. This is because these dynamic processes are just that — dynamic.
But the trends point to significant changes and more change than was originally anticipated in the actual sense of recorded data related to sea levels, sea temperatures, precipitation amounts, wind velocity, pressures, and lightning data (strikes, and the characteristics of them). You can watch endless documentaries on this stuff, seriously.
Actually, you don’t have to believe these people that make these films, you can observe for yourself — the data is there — sometimes real-time sensor data — people are not making this up.
October, 2016
It’s been a year. No. Wait. It’s been more than a year.
We’ve been seeing wacky strange, scary weather now for some time. Summertime temperatures in the winter, violent tornadoes, floods, all at times of the year that normally were snow, maybe some ice, but definitely cold weather months. Now it is week to week.
Last week we had a hot days, followed by a cold front. Temperatures reached nearly 90-degrees F, before plummeting down 50 degrees.
Is this normal? Well, not for a lot of us who can remember back 50 or more years. We can remember snow and ice in the winter – every winter, even in the Gulf Coast areas. Likely, our grandparents witnessed snow on the beach.
For us, however, it’s been down, and up, and down. Torrential rains and flooding – tornadoes the day after Christmas in North Texas – and frequent crazy weather visiting our East and West Coasts of the USA, while other countries are suffering their own sets of “different” weather.
So, there are these politicians who have strong beliefs that “science” is kooky, and can be wished away, or voted to have an outcome that is different.
Good luck with that.
In the meantime, we observe the weather. We hope that people will pay attention, and prepare, and learn to live with it this way. One thing for certain, it isn’t going to be like it was. That train has left the station, and will not return.
June, 2016
Get insight. Before it is too late. The clock is ticking. monitoring our environment has become extremely important as weather events become more severe and impact us more often, changing sometimes instantaneously.
There are some great sites that help us with this, and do so on our mobile applications such that we can be alerted when we need to move out of harm’s way…
Be aware and ACT.
Just trying to understand if we can keep the Monarchs and the Dragonflies, and Everything Else On Earth in Harmony on a sustainable planet. Is it too late? With those reckless humans that seem “hell bent”… If only they knew at the time how much they are truly like animals – kill or be killed mentality – more sophisticated, but is that really the underlying theme that drives people, too? Maybe it is not in our design pattern to know…
Faith.
It’s what faith is all about. Hope. Something to keep us from despair. Yet there are pockets of despair that pop-up every day. And, we pray, for a bit more charity in the hearts of mankind… and for guidance and insight. Before it is too late. The clock is ticking.
But in the meantime – visualize the places you know with what will happen.
It’s inevitable.
Too late to stop it now. It’s time for us to learn to live with the disasters that are happening more frequently. Prepare yourself for flooding (buy flood insurance if you can afford it). Get a kayak, and some paddles. Get enough food (especially that which can be prepared without power) and potable water to last at least two weeks – a month is better. Aspirin, pain-killers, anti-histamines, tummy meds, if you are on medication for cardio, or other major systems that if you did not have this, you could become ill – stock up so you do not run out unexpectedly, and not be able to get more for awhile. A first-aid kit is essential. Blankets, for staying warm — and the usual extra clothing in case you do not have access to water for awhile.
If you have a propane driven cooker, get extra propane. Make sure your car is gassed up. Stock-up on mosquito repellent. Make sure that you have screens on your windows. Buy a hand-cranked battery charger.
Politicians, unless they are certified, bona fide climate scientists, don’t believe them. Look at the data. Look at the records in the geology.
It’s Mother Earth. It’s how she is. It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature. Not your fault, likely, but just like in early school – one kid cuts up, the whole class gets punished. It’s how it is. Make the best of it.