Moving: Seeking Shelter

THE MOST ALARMING, frightening thing about climate change is also the most obvious; it is already here. For a long time we talked about global warming and climate change, not without some justification, as if they were threats of the far off future. Although global warming has been underway for some time, only recently have we discovered it, begun to study it, pay attention to it, and now, to actually experience it. No longer is it a threat for the futre;it is already harming human civilization, and the harm will only increase, repidly and extremely. A new book, "On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America", by Abraham Lustgarten, discusses and analyzes one of the most profound impacts climate change is already having and will ontinue to have on people; mass migration, such as that which is currently originating in central America. As extreme weather, floods, droughts, violent storms, out of control wildfires, rising sea levels, become more severe, people will have little choice but to flee, in search of a safer place to live. Eventually, we on this planet will run out of safe places to live, and probably sooner rather than later. The American people have always been migratory. We aint seen nothin' yet. In the coming decades, tens of millions of Americans will relocate, fleeing climate change. All of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. are also among the most impacted by climate change. The great American migration is barely but beginning. The growing season is getting longer. In many places in the northern hemisphere, October has now become a summer month. Every year is hotter than the previous,every year is the hottest year ever, and every month is the hottest month ever. Global warming is coming on fast, and will only get faster. Where I live every summer seems hotter than the previous, there is at least one severe drought every year, and sometimes more, and I begin to wonder how much longer it will be before the wildfires come here. And they will come here. They will come to the midwest and southeast, will eventually sweep all across the United States. How can it be otherwise, with a warming atmosphere, warming ever faster? For years predictions about climate change have focused on the middle of the twenty first century, and the end of the century. We are now rapidly approaching the middle of the century, and sure enough, all the predictions made by climate change scentists over the past fifty years are coming true. I'm worried about the summer which will begin soon, this coming summer. I wonder how severe the inevitable drougt will be, whether any more of my shrubs or trees will die, like several did last year. Tornado season, which is getting longer each year and seemingly will soon encompass the entire year, has begun. Tornados, like hurricanes, floods, and drougts, seem to be becoming larger and more numerous. I am beginning to think that I will live long enough to see a summer in which the daytime temperature reaches one hundred degrees every day during June, July, and August. Its going to happen, its just a matter of when, of how soon.I would never have thought I would live to see it, until recently. It may be that all of our current meek and mild climate change fighting activities will suddenly explode into huge, effective solutions, and the problem will be reversed, solved. Climate back to normal. It could hapen. It is not impossible. At present, though, there is nothing to indicate that its going to. We keep plodding along, and climate change keeps outpacing us. Our only comfort is that the race isn't quite over, yet.