Accumulating Disasters

WITHIN THE PAST MONTH, no fewer than six, count 'em six tyhoons, aka hurricanes, have roared past and through the Phillipine islands. The most recnet one is making landfall at this very moment, November 15, just as the next to most recent one is leaving and heading back out to sea. A hurricane parade. Meanwhile, a massive cloud of filthy air, aka "smog", is positioned over all of south Asia, so massive it can be seen from space. The impact on the health of hundreds of millions of people will take time to assess, but will, obviously, be extensive. The smog is the direct result of human activity, although American conservatives quite likely are perfectly willing to attribute it to nature, the fact that it consists of particles and chemicals which can be produced only by industrial processes notwithstanding. The typhoons clearly prove what has until recently been somewhat in doubt; whether the frequency as well as the severity of storms will be affected by climate change. Now we know; it will be, and already is. All of this was predicted by climate science decades ago. Smog has damaged the health of millions of people for decades and centuries. Smog was thick over Los Angeles between World War Two and the end of the century, and has only been mitigated noticeably since then, as cars have become more fuel efficient and fuel and cars cleaner, equipped with catalytic converters. Dense smog from coal burning blanketed all major European cities beginning in the late eighteenth century, and continuing throughout the nineteenth. Over a four day period in 1852, thousands of people in London died from respiratory distress, as the smog became so thick and unmoving that the city was dark as night during the day time. For more than one hundred years, some perceptive scientists have known about and written about climate change. Einstein even thought it might be a good idea, to enhance agricultural production during the famines following World War Two. Even Einstein was sometimes wrong. Every result of climate change is now occuring on a regular basis all over the world. Prolonged droughts. Massive, torrential rains, and severe flooding. Rising sea levels. Massive wildfires. Summers in which scorching, record setting temperatures never abate. Winters in which winter never comes, with mild weather, even summery weather, in winter months. Tornadoes in December in the United States, to which tornadoes are unique. In the United States, tornado and wildfire seasons, once lasting only a few months, are now year round. Climate change, with serious, devastating consequences, is now unavoidable, for the present and for the future. The only remaining question is exacly how severe it will be in the future, and how much, if any, can and will we the human species mitigate it. The answer is that we have the ability to mitigate climate change considerably, and to lessen the severity of it sufficiently to give our descendants a fighting chance to lead lives worth living. So, we can. Equally importantly, will we? Will we take action in time? Our already slugghish, belated sefforts towards that end have now, sudddenly, shockingly, been brought to an abrupt halt, at least in the United States, by the election of climate denying Donald Trump. Among Trump's seemingly endless list of harmful, criminal words and deeds, the most important of all is his refusal to acknowledge and address human caused climate change. The same goes for most Republicans, and most conservatives, although gradually they are starting to awaken, and become more reasonable. They have no choice. But now Trump and his oil digging, coal burning lunacy is locked in, seemingly, for the next four years, four years during which our chances of saving the planet might well vanish, forever.