Tuesday’s local newspaper said May 2006 was the wettest on record – over six and half inches and eight days to go before the end of the month. We’ve had rain since and we’re supposed to have more tomorrow and Saturday. It’s depressing for us all and especially hard on the lady down the block who, for some reason, likes to mow her lawn four times a week in the warm months.
Today is a rare sunny day and as I write, my neighbor is out with a vengeance, attacking the scruffy, five-inch blades of grass and filling the air with noise and hydrocarbons. This is what global warming looks like (and in my neighborhood, sounds and smells like).
Some places, like New England, are being washed away; others, like Phoenix, were so dry this winter that people had to water cacti to keep them from dying. April, according to the Associated Press, was the warmest ever for the lower 48 states, coming in at four and a half degrees above average. Four and a half degrees is a huge margin by meteorological standards.
Hurricane season begins a week from today. National forecasters predict more storms than usual this year. In New Orleans, Ray Nagin was re-elected, vowing to rebuild his city and ensure a better response to the next hurricane than his constituents saw in the last one. Public-service announcements on New Orleans radio stations offer counseling for post-traumatic stress syndrome. The levees have been rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers, but outside experts – and some inside experts – say the standards to which they were rebuilt are not enough to withstand another Katrina-sized storm. It’s going to be a tough summer on the Gulf coast, even if a storm doesn’t hit. The uncertainty will be hard enough.
For relaxation – ? – I’m reading Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. Nothing in the book is particularly new, but there are myriad details and context and records, most of which seem to have been set since I was born. In 1961, the Earth’s population was three billion people, including the new-born Mark Floegel. Today, we have twice as many people, consuming resources and throwing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a furious rate. Four billion of our six billion people live within 50 miles of the ocean. In Bangladesh alone, 10 million people live within three feet of sea level. Over there, the storms are called typhoons, but they flood and drown and destroy just the same.
In the Gulf of Mexico and up the east coast of the U.S. this spring, ocean waters are warmer than usual. Warm water equals strong hurricanes. Mr. Flannery describes how hurricanes are heat engines fueled by water vapor. The warmer the water, the more fuel for the storm, the longer and stronger it blows. It’s not a question of if, but when and where. Another blow to the gulf, to send struggling communities there back to their knees? Another four-storm slugfest across the Florida peninsula, as we saw in 2004? How about Chesapeake Bay? DC? New York City? When I was 11, Hurricane Agnes swept through western New York. In the Allegheny Mountains, flood water washed the wing of a hospital into the Genesee River. It’s not just the Lower Ninth Ward that needs worry.
In Washington, DC suits argue over whether carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a shill for the oil industry, is airing commercials saying, “Carbon dioxide – they call it pollution; we call it life.” (www.cei.org) It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
Here’s what else I’ve seen in my time:
– Warmest year on record? 1998… excuse me, 2005
– Most powerful El Nino? 1997-98
– Hottest European summer? 2003 (26,000 people dead)
– Highest temperature ever recorded – 2004 – 123.8 degrees Fahrenheit in Egypt
Here’s something I won’t see in my time: the end of all this. Mr. Flannery explains that it takes about 30 years for the deep oceans to warm, so even if we came to our senses today (and there’s no evidence we will happen anytime soon), we’d still be seeing significant effects of global warming when I’m 75 years old.
In My Life
Tuesday’s local newspaper said May 2006 was the wettest on record – over six and half inches and eight days to go before the end of the month. We’ve had rain since and we’re supposed to have more tomorrow and Saturday. It’s depressing for us all and especially hard on the lady down the block who, for some reason, likes to mow her lawn four times a week in the warm months.
Today is a rare sunny day and as I write, my neighbor is out with a vengeance, attacking the scruffy, five-inch blades of grass and filling the air with noise and hydrocarbons. This is what global warming looks like (and in my neighborhood, sounds and smells like).
Some places, like New England, are being washed away; others, like Phoenix, were so dry this winter that people had to water cacti to keep them from dying. April, according to the Associated Press, was the warmest ever for the lower 48 states, coming in at four and a half degrees above average. Four and a half degrees is a huge margin by meteorological standards.
Hurricane season begins a week from today. National forecasters predict more storms than usual this year. In New Orleans, Ray Nagin was re-elected, vowing to rebuild his city and ensure a better response to the next hurricane than his constituents saw in the last one. Public-service announcements on New Orleans radio stations offer counseling for post-traumatic stress syndrome. The levees have been rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers, but outside experts – and some inside experts – say the standards to which they were rebuilt are not enough to withstand another Katrina-sized storm. It’s going to be a tough summer on the Gulf coast, even if a storm doesn’t hit. The uncertainty will be hard enough.
For relaxation – ? – I’m reading Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. Nothing in the book is particularly new, but there are myriad details and context and records, most of which seem to have been set since I was born. In 1961, the Earth’s population was three billion people, including the new-born Mark Floegel. Today, we have twice as many people, consuming resources and throwing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a furious rate. Four billion of our six billion people live within 50 miles of the ocean. In Bangladesh alone, 10 million people live within three feet of sea level. Over there, the storms are called typhoons, but they flood and drown and destroy just the same.
In the Gulf of Mexico and up the east coast of the U.S. this spring, ocean waters are warmer than usual. Warm water equals strong hurricanes. Mr. Flannery describes how hurricanes are heat engines fueled by water vapor. The warmer the water, the more fuel for the storm, the longer and stronger it blows. It’s not a question of if, but when and where. Another blow to the gulf, to send struggling communities there back to their knees? Another four-storm slugfest across the Florida peninsula, as we saw in 2004? How about Chesapeake Bay? DC? New York City? When I was 11, Hurricane Agnes swept through western New York. In the Allegheny Mountains, flood water washed the wing of a hospital into the Genesee River. It’s not just the Lower Ninth Ward that needs worry.
In Washington, DC suits argue over whether carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a shill for the oil industry, is airing commercials saying, “Carbon dioxide – they call it pollution; we call it life.” (www.cei.org) It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
Here’s what else I’ve seen in my time:
– Warmest year on record? 1998… excuse me, 2005
– Most powerful El Nino? 1997-98
– Hottest European summer? 2003 (26,000 people dead)
– Highest temperature ever recorded – 2004 – 123.8 degrees Fahrenheit in Egypt
Here’s something I won’t see in my time: the end of all this. Mr. Flannery explains that it takes about 30 years for the deep oceans to warm, so even if we came to our senses today (and there’s no evidence we will happen anytime soon), we’d still be seeing significant effects of global warming when I’m 75 years old.
© Mark Floegel, 2006