When reports of heat waves started back in June, a countdown timer started in my head. The media would start yammering in 3 … 2 … 1 …, “ZOMG! Global warming!”
Fools.
The hallmarks of greenhouse gas-induced climate change [1] are, in approximately this order:
- higher night time temperatures and warming at high latitudes (Arctic and Antarctic)
- ocean acidification and thermal expansion (that cause one type of rising sea level [2])
- reduced rainfall in dry areas, increased in wet areas
- desertification of continental interiors, including hotter summers, droughts, water shortages, and the rest….
We’ve had the first two sets for a couple of decades already. But that wasn’t a problem because nobody felt hot, except maybe a few polar bears and glaciers.
(There were also a bunch of scientists running around with their hair on fire, but scientists do boring stuff like talk about evidence and numbers –even when their heads are burning — so that didn’t count.)
Now we’re well into the phase where warming starts to bite. Floods and droughts seem to be larger, longer, and harsher. Russia is burning [3]. Desertification in China [4] is proceeding on schedule. Huge dust storms blanket Beijing and dump Chinese particulates all the way over here, where I live, near Los Angeles.
Now the media are starting to notice, now that they had to turn up the A/C. Hell, now Presidents are starting to get a vague sense that maybe, perhaps, there’s a problem here somewhere.
The Russian President has been shocked — shocked! — to find his country in a huge heat wave that’s ruined at least a third of the grain crop and fosters wildfires. Last year, he said [5], “We will not let anyone cut our development potential.”
Sure.
Floods, fire, and famine are cheap.