Skip to main content

It's a Changed World

December 23, 2010 – Climate disruption is becoming a reality for more and more people.
It’s become a bit personal, too – my son is in Southern California. He flies out today, thank goodness. Here’s a brief rundown of what the Golden State has been contending with:

· 17 feet of snow has fallen in the Sierra Nevada mountains
· Some locations have received their entire annual rainfall
· 20,000 homes are without power
· Roads and bridges have been washed away
· Mudslides are numerous because of wildfires that decimated vegetation
on hillsides

It remains to be seen whether and how the rest of the United States will be affected by this treacherous storm.

Meanwhile, Western Europeans stand amazed as snow, ice and freezing temperatures bring airports and rail terminals to their knees. Millions of holiday travelers have been affected by the unusually harsh weather, with flight cancellations and long delays at rail terminals being the rule. Thousands have slept on the floors of airports in England, France, and Germany. For some reason there are night flight restrictions in place throughout much of Europe, but affected countries have either declared a moratorium on the restrictions, or are considering doing so. Oversight organizations are asking tough questions about the lack of preparedness demonstrated by airports, pointing out that Scandinavians have no trouble dealing with bad weather. Something tells me it just might have to do with more practice …. The current weather in Western Europe is the worst in 30 years.

Finally, the beleaguered people of Colombia have been suffering an unprecedented La Nina for weeks. Flooding is widespread, and 1.5 – 2 million people have been made homeless. The rain has not stopped, and forecasts call for it to continue through February. Hundreds of thousands of children are without schools to attend, and 1.5 millions acres of farmland are unusable. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has sent personnel to aid in assessing the damage to a levee on the Dique Canal. They will also devise a recommended course of action. The president of Colombia is contemplating various strategies in order to raise money for his country. At the same time, he is advising foreign companies they will continue to be welcome in Colombia as long as they accept two provisos: demonstrating social and environmental responsibility. This may have been leveled primarily at logging and mining operations, two activities which are largely to blame for the sedimentation of rivers and deltas in the country. As these bodies of water fill up with sediment, the rain has been left with nowhere to go, and has spilled over riverbanks and marshes.

Good can come of these catastrophes if we learn from them. In California, hillside house construction must cease. Water catchment systems must be expanded. Burned over hillsides must be replanted. Europeans need to acquire additional snow removal equipment, and the night flying issue must be re-evaluated. In Colombia, logging and mining companies must be dealt with severely. Colombia must repair its strained relations with other countries, and must - at last – bring every degree of force at its command to bear on narco-trafficking.

We can all look to the people of Ecuador for inspiration. The president of Ecuador, moved by Colombia’s desperate situation, visited his neighbor with offers of help. Though Colombia invaded Ecuador in 2008 for the purpose of killing a rebel leader, the two countries have once again established diplomatic relations.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Great March for Climate Action

December 23, 2013 – Have you heard about The Great March for Climate Action?   I just learned about it today.   Organizers have determined it will take them 246 days to march from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.   They are looking for 1,000 people – 20 from each state – to participate.   The march is stopping in many, many locations along the way so that locals can participate for as little as a day, or as long as they like. The march is Ed Fallon’s brainchild.   Ed, along with most of his staff members, is from Iowa, where he served as a state legislator for fourteen years.   He currently hosts a radio program called Fallon Forum.   Fallon began his career as a social activist coordinating the Iowa section of the Great Peace March in 1986.  Ed bases his approach on Great Marches of the past.  Women suffragists marched on Washington on March 3, 1913; Gandhi led the Salt March in India on March 12, 1930; Dr. King led the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery

Greenland: A State of Rapid Collapse

 September 1, 2020 The good news, such as it is, goes like this: the suspense is over. No need to guess about whether sea level rise will be life-altering by the end of this century or not. It will, at least for the 40 percent of humankind which lives on or near a coastline. That's because all the ice on Greenland is going to melt, according to researchers at Ohio State University (yes, yes, I know - it's THE Ohio State University. Get over yourselves.) Their research appeared in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment in August. Total meltdown will take 10,000 years, but enough will have melted by 2100 to cause sea level rise of approximately three feet. That will cover a lot of coastal property, a loss made worse by storms and hurricanes. How have researchers reached this conclusion? By studying almost 40 years of satellite data. Glaciers on Greenland have shrunk so much since the year 2000 that even if global warming came to a complete stop, they would contin