In the South and Southwest, and most intensely from Southern California to South Florida, a dangerous heat wave has gripped the nation, with 104 million Americans under a heat warning advisory. Records are being broken right and left: The first full week of July was recorded as the Earth’s hottest on record, and it followed the hottest June on record. Texas has been hit especially hard, with cities recording high temperatures of 110 degrees or more. This is not some minor inconvenience, but a dangerous and deadly circumstance, with hundreds of people sick and a dozen dying in the Lone Star State from heat-related causes this summer. On Thursday, the Maryland Department of Health also reported its first heat-related casualty of the summer: a 52-year-old man in Cecil County.
Scientists point to any number of factors behind the scorching temperatures, including the El Nino effect, in which above-average Pacific Ocean temperatures spread and influence global weather patterns, including those heat domes where a high-pressure “lid” is created by atmospheric air currents trapping heat. But reinforcing all of this is the one underlying cause: Greenhouse gas emissions, most the result of burning fossil fuels and related human-made activities, are making the planet hotter.
This is known as climate change, and while some in the far-right of the political spectrum — or perhaps those who make their living in the oil and gas industry — would like to deny its existence, let the summer of 2023 be an official (albeit only the latest) wake-up call from Mother Nature: Things are going to get worse.
Climate deniers will surely respond to this unhappy event with their usual conspiracy theories and ignorance to dismiss reality even as 120-degree high temperatures rewrite the record books. (The typical non-denial: “Carbon dioxide is naturally occurring” which is a bit like observing that cancer is found in nature, too). But ask actual experts and there’s simply no serious debate about the existence of, and threat posed by, climate change, only on the nitty-gritty of how it’s going to play out.
The Canadian wildfires that have already left their Code Red mark on Maryland — with the plume of smoke still likely to return — are largely a byproduct of drought, which, again, is rooted in climate change. Yet even in a state where an estimated 8 out of 10 people recognize that climate change is real, we can get caught up in a political debate over whether raising the state tax on gasoline by pennies each year to keep up with inflation will be ruinous.
While we would be confident that Americans are capable of understanding this — a majority view climate change as a major threat, according to opinion polls — the sharp political divide over the topic threatens to stall serious policy actions. One can only hope that a heat wave hitting Austin and Tallahassee hardest might change some minds in these key red states. Time is of the essence. Even if we somehow stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, it wouldn’t reverse all the damage we’ve already done. But it would allow the Earth to find a new equilibrium, albeit one that could still include melted glaciers, droughts, floods, higher temperatures, stronger storms and so on. At least we would be doing less to make it worse.
When the dust finally settles and the impact is fully understood, we seriously doubt there will be much comfort in telling anyone, “We told you so.” Mostly, we would forecast a lot of embarrassment and shame as we try to explain to our children and grandchildren how we were incapable of dealing with the global threat in a timely manner. The problem didn’t start with Baby Boomers or Generation X, but we had the knowledge and the tools to do something about it — and, at least so far, have fallen woefully short.
