“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level.”
“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/07/23/120723taco_talk_kolbert#ixzz20z8RK4Qr
The summer of 2012 offers Americans the best chance yet to get their minds around the problem. In late June, just as a sizzling heat wave was settling across much of the country—in Evansville, Indiana, temperatures rose into the triple digits for ten days, reaching as high as a hundred and seven degrees—wildfires raged in Colorado. Hot and extremely dry conditions promoted the flames’ spread. “It’s no exaggeration to say Colorado is burning,” KDVR, the Fox station in Denver, reported. By the time the most destructive blaze was fully contained, almost three weeks later, it had scorched nearly twenty-nine square miles. Meanwhile, a “super derecho”—a long line of thunderstorms—swept from Illinois to the Atlantic Coast, killing at least thirteen people and leaving millions without power.
Referring to the fires, the drought, and the storms, Jonathan Overpeck, a professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona, told the Associated Press, “This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about.” He also noted, “This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level.”
Or, at least, what it looks like right now. One of the most salient—but also, unfortunately, most counterintuitive—aspects of global warming is that it operates on what amounts to a time delay. Behind this summer’s heat are greenhouse gases emitted decades ago. Before many effects of today’s emissions are felt, it will be time for the Summer Olympics of 2048. (Scientists refer to this as the “commitment to warming.”) What’s at stake is where things go from there. It is quite possible that by the end of the century we could, without even really trying, engineer the return of the sort of climate that hasn’t been seen on earth since the Eocene, some fifty million years ago.
Along with the heat and the drought and the super derecho, the country this summer is also enduring a Presidential campaign. So far, the words “climate change” have barely been uttered. This is not an oversight. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have chosen to remain silent on the issue, presumably because they see it as just too big a bummer.
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6/29/12 Storm .... it was followed up by 10 days of 100+ temps in central Ohio
= new reply since forum marked as read
while I am enjoying the Romney-roast as much as the next guy... tax forms are nothing compared to PLANETARY changes. But nobody wants to talk about it, nobody wants to touch it with a 10 foot pole...We are, as individuals, going to have to deal with the extreme weather with our own ingenuity, because leaders will not face the truth. I hope at least 'some' humans make it through the next bottleneck event, and that the planet will somehow regulate itself in time. 
The storm came out of no place and was extremely strong ..... if this was
just a taste of what is upcoming we are in deep shit.
I hate those Koch brothers and their paid liars who claim that climate change is not real.
and here in the west it has been unseasonably cool, so my garden is growing very sluggishly. (extreme gardening, 6000' elevation, 60-75 day summer!)
I am watching this corn thing very carefully, stocking up little by little of flour and other cereal/grains...I have a bad feeling about a food shortage this winter. and next year will only get weirder and woolier take care of yourself!
