Changing Minds About the Climate Crisis

As we celebrated America’s birthday this month, in an unprecedented heat wave. We are reminded how much we love this place. But are we killing it will our love? Are we loving it to death? Are we smothering it? Yes. What we need to do with all that love and affection is heal the country with our devotion to health, love of nature, and time is running out. How much has the climate warmed? The average global temperature has already increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (a little more than 1 degree Celsius) compared to pre-industrial times. Global warming is accelerating. It is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.

While we are a diverse bunch, insistently so, we can all collectively say we love it here. That’s what the 4th of July was about, we love the holiday, the bbq, the fireworks, the friends and family. We essentially do something as Americans that we never do, relax and agree to have a big ol’ American birthday party. So, with that in mind, can we agree on climate change? If we can agree on climate change then we can have more parties and less climate disasters, unbelievable heat waves, and compromised habitats. Why IS is so hard to agree on something so obvious and destructive?

Since Covid is everywhere, there was reporting last week that emergency rooms in the upper Northwest treated MORE patients for heat than they did for Covid. Yet, I don’t see a ticker on the front page of the New York Times recording new cases of Climate Victims. The world is a living, breathing planet, that we rely on for the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the bed we sleep. Myopathy is rampant. Actions of one effect all. One corporation, one person, one city, one agency, is all of us. What happens here stays here..

America. With its’ creativity, curiosity, and tenaciousness why can’t we figure this out now? What if we treat the climate crisis like the response to Covid. A shutdown, a mask, a vaccine.

Unfortunately, as Americans we are not so unified as we are about the 4th of July as we are about Climate Change. That’s because, well, we are Americans. We have so many freedoms to choose, what we say, what we believe, what we support and what we buy. Same with climate crisis. I can choose not to think it effects me because my house hasn’t burned down, I haven’t been in a Hurricane since I was 5, and the average temperature where I live is 72 degrees. I could choose not to care or think it’s not real because I haven’t experienced it. So who does care? Where are people falling into place on this emergency?

A few resources to change your mind, or someone you know that needs some real data on climate crisis facts. It’s here and it’s happening now.

https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/about/projects/global-warmings-six-americas/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/07/03/climate-change-heat-dome-death/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/magazine/ezra-klein-climate-crisis.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/07/01/underpaid-firefighters-overstretched-budgets-us-isnt-prepared-fires-fueled-by-climate-change/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/01/heat-wave-deaths-pacific-northwest/

https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/12/16/21024323/ezra-klein-show-saul-griffith-solve-climate-change

So, how do we talk about Climate change/crisis?

Fortunately, NPR has given some direction and framework around the discussion.

How is warming affecting the weather and other things?

* The warming climate is making heat waves, droughts, and floods more frequent and intense.

* Winters are warming faster than other seasons. That’s melting snowpack earlier, hurting crops that need freezing temperatures, and expanding the range of vector-borne diseases.

Flooding and sea level rise

* Floods are getting more frequent and severe in most of the U.S. because of more extreme precipitation and sea level rise from climate change.

* In the U.S., sea levels are rising fastest on the East and Gulf coasts, with many communities disrupted by flooding even on sunny days.

* Scientists warn that, without dramatic cuts in carbon emissions, rising sea levels will displace millions later this century.

Hurricanes

* Hurricanes are causing more severe floods because of the combined effects of higher seas, warmer air, and warmer ocean water.

* Hurricanes are moving more slowly and dropping more rain as the Earth gets hotter. Once they make landfall, they still pack a big punch and lose their power much more slowly. Fifty years ago, a typical storm would lose 75% of its strength within the first 24 hours after it came on land. Now, it loses only 50% in the same time period.

* Hurricanes are more likely to be larger and more powerful when they form over hotter ocean water. Climate change is causing global sea surface temperatures to rise.

Wildfires

* Climate change makes large, destructive wildfires more likely because of hotter temperatures and drier vegetation. Other factors include expanding development, and an overabundance of fuel because of past fire suppression.

* Higher average temperatures are increasing the length of fire season and the number of places where fires can occur. In recent years, fires have expanded in the Arctic and even in some rainforests.

Biodiversity and habitat

* Human activities, including climate change, have put roughly a million species at risk of extinction, many within decades. Climate change is expected to become the leading cause of extinction as temperatures warm.

* Warmer temperatures and altered precipitation patterns upset the stability of natural ecosystems, threatening biodiversity.

Health

* Scientists say the warming climate endangers Americans’ health through extreme weather disasters, deadly heat, unhealthy air, and more diseases.

Agriculture

* The warming climate already is making it harder to grow food in some parts of the world, like California, which depends on snow piling up in the Sierra Nevada mountains for irrigation. Climate models predict more serious disruption to global agriculture a few decades in the future because of shifting rainfall and extreme weather.

* About a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food. Land clearing is the biggest single reason, because it releases carbon dioxide stored in the soil and trees. Other greenhouse emissions come from nitrogen fertilizer and — famously — the methane-laden burps of cattle and sheep.

* There are potential solutions for reducing greenhouse emissions from agriculture. The most important change would be to use less land to grow food, converting cropland to permanent grassland or forests that can capture carbon dioxide from the air. This could be done by increasing productivity on existing land, eating less meat (especially beef), and reducing the use of biofuels like ethanol, which is made from corn.

How much time do we have to end carbon emissions?

* Scientists say the world needs to essentially eliminate new carbon emissions by 2050 to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. Because that is such a daunting challenge, they say new technologies are needed to actually remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

* Carbon dioxide emissions stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, so even if they fell to zero the planet would continue warming for a long time. But cutting emissions now means that humans will avoid even worse disasters than the ones we’re already coping with.

Jennifer Ludden is Climate and Energy Editor on NPR’s National Desk