Atmospheric rivers drowning large sections of the country? “Thousand and Hundreds of Years” events that now happen several times a year? Super-intense hurricanes and tornados? Homes crashing off coastal cliffs, streets that really flood after almost every rain? Wildfires that consume entire communities and massive forests? Increasingly uncomfortable summer heat? Vast tracks of land becoming deserts? Diseases migrating with insects seeking their ideal temperatures? Or none of the above? If you are Gen Z and maybe Gen Y, all of the above matter. If you are older and Republican, it’s that we cannot afford to adapt to the mythology of immediate climate change destruction; there are other explanations for those mega- “natural” disasters.
By simply ignoring the intensifying aspects of climate change on other climate patterns – such as El Niño (a warm water cycle which causes the Pacific jet stream to move south) and La Niña (where trade winds are even stronger than usual, pushing more warm water toward Asia, which causes our coastal upwelling, bringing cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface) – and attributing the complex climate interaction to non-climate change variables, many climate change deniers are content to live with that simplistic and scientifically incorrect explanation alone.
Nature does not seem to care. The laws of physics are not subject to popularity contests or leadership that either does too little too late… nothing at all… of simply encourages personal and business practices that make matters worse. While alternative energy saved the Texas grid this winter and as statistics tell us that this energy is creating far more jobs than the traditional fossil fuel industry, red America is pushing back against a green future and trying desperately to return us to dependence on greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel extraction.
Even greedy entrepreneurs who found unprecedented wealth in the alternative energy sector appear to be more interested in pursuing new potential money-makers than in sticking to their original vectors. “At first, the electric automaker, founded 20 years ago, was to many investors and fans the answer to climate change, especially as Elon Musk showed the world that a zero-emissions vehicle could be both cool and profitable. At one point, he said helping to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change is why Tesla ‘exists.’
“As time wore on and others began chasing the EV dream, Musk positioned Tesla as something else, a gateway for artificial intelligence to move from the digital world into the physical world through driverless cars and then humanoid robots.” Wall Street Journal, February 10th. Threatened with a Delaware court’s determination that Musk’s board approved $56 billion compensation package was completely unjustified, Musk seems ready to abandon Tesla and explore his new quest in an entirely new entity. Apparently, being on the verge of being one of America’s first trillionaires is his real target. Musk has recast himself as an ultra-rightwing zealot.
While those older climate change patterns really do exist – we’re in an El Niño cycle with a La Niña event likely immediately to follow, a sequence that is likely to play havoc across our land – there are so many intensive disruptions in our world that perhaps we have become jaded and inured to those disasters. Besides, as many in the South believe, those fires and atmospheric rivers are a West Coast thang. Not really, and for those jeering at our Pacific Ocean mess, standby for an Atlantic Ocean climate change event that is anything but routine: A long-term looming change in what had been a fairly stable current pattern in the Atlantic. Writing for CNN.com (February 9th), Laura Paddison explains:
“A crucial system of ocean currents may already be on course to collapse, according to a new report, with alarming implications for sea level rise and global weather — leading temperatures to plunge dramatically in some regions and rise in others… Using exceptionally complex and expensive computing systems, scientists found a new way to detect an early warning signal for the collapse of these currents, according to the study published Friday [2/9] in the journal Science Advances. And as the planet warms, there are already indications it is heading in this direction.
“The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the AMOC) — of which the Gulf Stream is part — works like a giant global conveyor belt, taking warm water from the tropics toward the far North Atlantic, where the water cools, becomes saltier and sinks deep into the ocean, before spreading southward… The currents carry heat and nutrients to different areas of the globe and play a vital role in keeping the climate of large parts of the Northern Hemisphere relatively mild.
“For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm on the circulation’s stability as climate change warms the ocean and melts ice, disrupting the balance of heat and salt that determines the currents’ strength… The impacts of the AMOC’s collapse could be catastrophic. Some parts of Europe might see temperatures plunge by up to 30 degrees Celsius over a century, the study finds, leading to a completely different climate over the course of just a decade or two… ‘No realistic adaptation measures can deal with such rapid temperature changes,’ the study authors write.
“Countries in the Southern Hemisphere, on the other hand, could see increased warming, while the Amazon’s wet and dry seasons could flip, causing serious disruption to the ecosystem… The AMOC’s collapse could also cause sea levels to surge by around 1 meter (3.3 feet), van Westen said… Stefan Rahmstorf, a physical oceanographer at Potsdam University in Germany, who was not involved with the study, said it was ‘a major advance in AMOC stability science.’
“‘It confirms that the AMOC has a tipping point beyond which it breaks down if the Northern Atlantic Ocean is diluted with freshwater,’ he told CNN… Previous studies finding the AMOC’s tipping point used much simpler models, he said, giving hope to some scientists that it might not be found under more complex models… This study crushes those hopes, Rahmstorf said.”
Are we certain that this alteration in vital Atlantic currents is going to happen? We cannot be 100% certain. But as we have ignored past projected changes in ocean currents, which have come to pass, there is little reason for optimism here. That January was the warmest on record should serve as a warning to us all. And if you think the Earth doesn’t change like that, perhaps you did not study the impact of the last (and continuing) ice age – Quaternary glaciation period – a phenomenon that reshaped the surface of our planet and is still with us as the ice-covered continent, Antarctica, illustrates. Exactly how much evidence do we need?
I’m Peter Dekom, and with various “tipping points” looming, some perhaps past, an eventual “oops, we miscalculated” will not fix the stupidity we are allowing to change the habitability of our planet.
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