Extreme weather

US Isn’t Prepared For Climate Disasters That Push People Deeper Into Poverty

December 6, 2021 Marina Lazetic and Karen Jacobsen, The Conversation. Create! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Hurricanes, Poverty

Despite years of preparations, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said there was no time to issue a mandatory evacuation order as Ida rapidly intensified into a powerful Category 4 hurricane. She urged city residents to “hunker down.” Mass evacuations require coordination among multiple parishes and states, and there wasn’t enough time. In several surrounding parishes, people were told to evacuate, but in low-lying and flood-prone areas, many residents couldn’t afford to leave. Hurricane Ida became the most destructive storm of the busy 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, which ended Nov. 30. It was one of eight named storms to hit the U.S. as the season exhausted the list of 21 tropical storm names for only the third year on record.

2.4 Degrees Is A Disaster – But COP Won’t Stop It

November 13, 2021 Chris Saltmarsh, Tribune Magazine. Strategize! climate crisis, COP 26, Extreme weather, Failed State

Regardless of the outcome of COP26, one inevitability is that the rich and powerful celebrate whatever the conference produces as vital progress. Only a disaster on the level of COP15 in Copenhagen might put a stop to the self-congratulatory triumphalism. Already, though, most observing the negotiations with a critical eye are highlighting how inadequate their product will be. Ed Miliband has said we’re ‘miles from where we need to be’ and Greta Thunberg declared COP26 to be a ‘failure’. These condemnations are backed up by analysis from Climate Action Tracker (CAT), assessing governments’ short-term commitments for the next decade. Its study reveals that our trajectory coming out of COP26 would take us to a devastating 2.4oC warming by the end of this century.

Homelands In Peril

October 28, 2021 Dianna Hunt, Indian Country Today. Educate! Climate Change, Environment, Extreme weather, Indigenous culture

Lower Lafitte, Louisiana — The blades of grass are just beginning to push through the thick, marsh mud in Russell Rodriguez’s yard as the mid-October sun beats down on southeastern Louisiana. A bald eagle soars high above the tall trees. Morning rays glimmer off the rippling waters of nearby Barataria Bayou as it pushes toward the Gulf of Mexico. It would be idyllic if not for the widespread destruction. Homes are wrecked, pushed off their pylons and shattered. Fishing boats are upended onto dry land. Coffins washed out of local cemeteries sit cracked open, the bones inside still waiting to be claimed. It’s more than Rodriguez can take. After decades in lower Lafitte about 65 miles south of New Orleans, he and his wife are leaving their home and their neighbors of the United Houma Nation for higher ground.

After Hurricane Ida, Mutual Aid Provides Safety And Survival

September 11, 2021 Jordan Flaherty , Waging Nonviolence. Create! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Mutual Aid, New Orleans

In the aftermath of disasters, those most in need are also who the state often leaves behind. Into this vacuum, communities come together for mutual aid. While charity rarely challenges the root causes behind disasters, and often divides recipients into worthy and unworthy, mutual aid comes from a principle of solidarity. As Dean Spade has written, “First, we need to organize to help people survive the devastating conditions unfolding every day. Second, we need to mobilize hundreds of millions of people for resistance so we can tackle the underlying causes of these crises.” In New Orleans, the entire city was without electricity for nearly a week (and tens of thousands still have not had their power turned back on).

Report From New Orleans: Government Does Nothing For The Poor

September 6, 2021 John Catalinotto, Workers World. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Government, New Orleans

Gavrielle Gemma, union and political organizer since the 1970s and now working with the New Orleans-based Workers Voice Socialist Movement, called Workers World to report on the situation there, post-Hurricane Ida. Gemma is now living in a modest single-family home in the Florida neighborhood of New Orleans, part of the Upper Ninth Ward. “It’s bad,” she said. “Only poor folk stayed once the mayor and governor advised that people evacuate. That means the people left had no choice, no place to go, no money to pay for hotels or motels — assuming they could find a room. If they had made the evacuation mandatory, then the government would be responsible for the welfare of the people who left. But they’re doing nothing."

Greed And Consumption: Why The World Is Burning

August 14, 2021 Ramzy Baroud, Mintpress News. Educate! Capitalism, climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather

Rome is scorching hot. This beautiful city is becoming unbearable for other reasons, too. Though every corner of the beaming metropolis is a monument to historical grandeur, from the Colosseum in Rione Monti to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in San Giovanni, it is now struggling under the weight of its own contradictions. In Via Appia, bins are overflowing with garbage, often spilling over into the streets. The smell, especially during Italy’s increasingly sweltering summers, is suffocating. Meanwhile, many parts of the country are literally on fire. Since June 15, firefighters have reportedly responded to 37,000 fire-related emergencies, 1,500 of them on July 18 alone. A week later, I drove between Campania, in southern Italy, and Abruzzo, in the center.

2021 Climate Disasters Raise Alarm Over Food Security

August 9, 2021 Sue Branford and Glenn Scherer, Mongabay. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Food and Agriculture, Food Security

In July, A Video Went Viral On Social Media In Argentina Showing People Walking Across What Looks Like A Desert. But It Isn’t A Desert. This Is The Bed Of The Paraná River, Part Of The Second-Largest River System In South America. Normally The Stream Rises In Brazil And Reaches The Sea Via The River Plate, Draining A Vast Watershed Covering All Of Paraguay, Southern Brazil And Northern Argentina. Normally The Water Volume Flowing To The Atlantic Roughly Equals That Of The Mississippi River. What’s Happening Now Is Not Normal. The Drying Up Of Large Stretches Of River Comes As The Most Severe Drought Since 1944 Afflicts The Region. No Relief Is Expected In The Short Term. According To Forecasts From Argentina’s Ministry Of Public Works, The Lack Of Rain Will Last For At Least Another Three Months.

Global Climate Panel’s Report: No Part Of The Planet Will Be Spared

August 9, 2021 Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, IPCC

Amidst a summer of fires, floods and heat waves, scientists on Monday delivered yet another reminder that burning more fossil fuels in the decades ahead will rapidly intensify the impacts of global warming. Only pulling the emergency brake right now on greenhouse gas emissions can stop the planet from heating to a dangerous level by the end of the century, the scientists’ report concluded. The report, Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis, is the first installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), which will be completed in 2022. It was approved Aug. 6 by 195 member governments of the IPCC. The report, by the panel’s Working Group I, assesses the physical science of climate change. It found that global warming is worsening deadly extremes like droughts and tropical storms and that every part of the planet is affected.

Record-Breaking Heat Waves Have Arrived Decades Earlier Than Predicted

July 29, 2021 Sasha Abramsky, Truthout. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, Mortality

The heat waves of 2021, which have pummeled western regions of the United States and Canada, have killed, at a minimum, hundreds of people. In British Columbia, authorities recorded a spike in deaths in the nearly 500-range after temperatures soared to near 120 degrees; and in both Oregon and Washington State, dozens more are known to have died. Yet those numbers, horrific as they are, do not tell the full story of the devastation caused by this summer’s record-breaking temperatures caused by a climate catastrophe that, until recently, even the most pessimistic climatologists thought was still two or three decades out. Indeed, the mortality data show that recent deaths were not simply a result of just one extreme “heat event.”

Media Dismiss European Union Climate Plan As ‘Ambitious’

July 28, 2021 Olivia Riggio, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, Media

A recent New York Times article (7/9/21) describes a sickening scene in the wake of the Pacific Northwest’s heat wave: Dead mussels and clams coated rocks in the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping open as if they’d been boiled. Sea stars were baked to death. Sockeye salmon swam sluggishly in an overheated Washington river, prompting wildlife officials to truck them to cooler areas. Scenes like this, the article points out, will become more frequent and intense as climate change progresses and creates domino effects up the food chain: Such extreme weather conditions will become more frequent and intense, scientists say, as climate change, driven by humans burning fossil fuels, wreaks havoc on animals and humans alike.

Wet Bulb Temperature Is The Scariest Part Of The Climate Crisis

July 18, 2021 Tim Andersen, Medium. Educate! climate crisis, Extinction, Extreme weather, livable future

Wet bulb temperature is one of those features of climate change caused by global warming that often gets left out when discussing the radical changes our planet is going to experience in the coming years. Discussion has largely focused on issues such as drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, storm activity, and even unusual cold. The impacts of increased heat have been left out because we assume, incorrectly it turns out, that human beings can adapt to moderate increases in global temperature. This turns out to be false, particularly in areas prone to hot and humid weather. It all comes down to one measure: wet bulb temperature. Wet bulb temperature is the one factor, more than any other, that can render entire regions uninhabitable. Wet bulb temperature is essentially the temperature of a wet thermometer bulb such that the water is able to evaporate into the air.

Climate Breakdown And The Corporate Media

July 13, 2021 Media Lens. Strategize! climate crisis, Corporatism, Extreme weather, Media

In today’s world, the prospects for human civilisation, never mind the existence of historians in the future, look bleak indeed. According to many leading climate scientists and biologists, the most likely outcome for humanity is the collapse of what is called ‘civilisation’. They warn that it may already be too late to change course.

Heat Waves Prompt Workers To Walk Out

July 4, 2021 Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post. Resist! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workers Walkout

Alicia Lara works the drive-thru at a Jack In The Box in Sacramento. The 55-year-old mother of four says the air conditioning unit inside the restaurant tends to conk out when she needs it most, including during a recent mid-June heat wave. According to Lara, the unit was not working on June 18 when the outside temperature soared well above 100 degrees. The open window at the drive-thru brought little relief, and she feared for the safety of her co-worker laboring over the grill. “Most of the heat is in the kitchen and at the fryers,” she told HuffPost. “Even if we open the window, it’s still too hot.” Lara was one of several workers affiliated with the Fight for $15 who protested outside the restaurant on Tuesday, saying they were walking off the job because the air conditioner still wasn’t working properly.

The Heat Wave Shows Climate Change Is A Workers’ Rights Issue

July 3, 2021 Mindy Isser, In These Times. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, Worker Rights and Jobs

While the 100 million computer workers in this country are more likely to be able to work safely indoors, other urgent and necessary work must continue outdoors, no matter the severity of the weather. The entirety of the working class is (or will be) affected by climate change, but it’s farm workers, letter carriers, construction workers, sanitation workers and other outdoor workers who are unable to escape to air conditioning, and are on the front lines of the environmental crisis.

A Deadly Summer In The Pacific Northwest Augurs More Heat Waves

July 2, 2021 Bob Berwyn, James Bruggers, and Liza Gross, Inside Climate News. Educate! Canada, climate crisis, Deaths, Extreme weather

It was the most extreme heat wave on record in the Pacific Northwest. And as officials count the heat-related deaths over the next weeks, it will almost certainly turn out to be one of the deadliest. In Vancouver, British Columbia, police responded to at least 65 sudden deaths suspected to be heat-related. And the province’s chief coroner said Wednesday that at least 486 deaths likely linked to the heat had been reported since Friday. The residents of one British Columbia community, Lytton, where a temperature of 121 degrees Fahrenheit was higher than any ever recorded in Canada, were ordered to evacuate because of an encroaching wildfire. “We’ve never seen anything like this, and it breaks our hearts,” said Sgt. Steve Addison, a spokesman for the Vancouver police department.

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