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As rains and floods soak some in the United States, as water resources such as the Ogallala Aquifer (that once gigantic lake under a large section of the grain belt West of the Mississippi) slowly disappear, as sea levels rise and ice flows and glaciers melt, as hurricanes increase in intensity and disease-spreading insects move their habitats, there is at one horror that is raging across vulnerable regions in the U.S. (and elsewhere around the world, most recently Australia): fire.

In 2008, California officially announced that fire season which used to start in August and end by the first day of winter was now a year-long risk: “[Then] Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said the threat of fire now exists all the time because of California's two-year-drought and ‘climate change.’ Across the state, rainfall is below normal while temperatures are higher than average.” Bloomberg.com, November 18, 2008. This year, fires in the winter season were contained by massive rains (Governor Jerry Brown has declared the drought to be over), but every fire marshal knows that the extra growth generated by that precipitation increases the available kindling for the inevitable fire storms significantly… and fires decimate forests and grasslands, inviting mudslides when the rains return later in the year.

This year, it’s Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico that are being hit by too many wildfires. April has been particularly difficult: “Not only has little or no precipitation fallen so far this month -- at a time when the strengthening sun has increased the rates of evaporation and evapotranspiration (the loss of moisture to the air from vegetation) -- but precipitation amounts since the fall have been far below normal. Southern New Mexico, as well as western and southern Texas, has had less than 25 percent of average precipitation since October.

”This translates to less than 2 inches of total rainfall in nearly half a year for many locations. To put that in perspective, a single heavy thunderstorm sometimes produces that much rain in an hour.… The result is long-term drought conditions that are extreme to exceptional, the worst category, and the intense drought extends eastward through the remainder of Texas into large portions of Arkansas and Louisiana.” AOLNews.com, April 14^th.

Across the United States, with rainfall and blizzards having marked the winter in many sections, fire has taken an even greater toll than normal: “More than 360,000 acres of land have been burned nationally by ongoing fires [in the second week of April], according to the National Interagency Fire Center. More than 900,000 acres have been burned so far this year, which is roughly one-third more than the 10-year average to date.” AOLNews.com. Global climate change from greenhouse gasses trapped in the ozone layer does not translate into warmer temperatures for every area on earth; it does account for higher average temperatures, and it does explain some of the extremes.

For example, a hurricane is born of wind swirls that begin as cool air meets warmer air and accelerates as these water spouts suck up tons of seawater to become whirling masses of devastation. As the surface temperature of the water rises, particularly as it goes up to somewhere between 81 and 83 degrees Fahrenheit, the volume of water that rises into the storm, hence increasing its intensity, increases. Even to have a hurricane, a minimum water temperature is necessary: “In most situations, water temperatures of at least 26.5 °C (79.7 °F) are needed down to a depth of at least 50 m (160 ft); waters of this temperature cause the overlying atmosphere to be unstable enough to sustain convection and thunderstorms.”Wikipedia. In short, the intensity of hurricane is directly related to the surface temperature of the water beneath.

The issue becomes increasingly difficult with the reactor meltdown in Japan, a nation that, until the meltdown, drew 30% of its power from nuclear plants. Without alternative energy resources deployed now, the envelope in the ozone from increased use of fossil fuels will only expand and intensify. Yet the pressures to open up new lands for drilling have only grown stronger in the past weeks. We have become a planet of reactive politicians, solving problems that create crises, but not anticipating the longer term. We simply cannot afford to think or act that way anymore. We need to see the linkage between our choices and the consequences of our choices.

I’m Peter Dekom, deeply concerned for those who cannot think beyond today.