Climate Change: Are You Ready for More?

[lakhota]

In a world of climate change, freak storms are the new normal. Newsweek's Sharon Begley on why we're unprepared for the harrowing future, and how adapting to the inevitable might be our only option.

Joplin, Missouri, was prepared. The tornado warning system gave residents 24 minutes' notice that a twister was bearing down on them. Doctors and nurses at St. John's Regional Medical Center, who had practiced tornado drills for years, moved fast, getting patients away from windows, closing blinds, and activating emergency generators. And yet more than 130 people died in Joplin, including four people at St. John's, where the tornado sucked up the roof and left the building in ruins, like much of the shattered city.

Even those who deny the existence of global climate change are having trouble dismissing the evidence of the last year. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,000 tornadoes have ripped across the heartland, killing more than 500 people and inflicting $9 billion in damage. The Midwest suffered the wettest April in 116 years, forcing the Mississippi to flood thousands of square miles, even as drought-plagued Texas suffered the driest month in a century. Worldwide, the litany of weather's extremes has reached biblical proportions. The 2010 heat wave in Russia killed an estimated 15,000 people. Floods in Australia and Pakistan killed 2,000 and left large swaths of each country under water. A months-long drought in China has devastated millions of acres of farmland. And the temperature keeps rising: 2010 was the hottest year on earth since weather records began.

From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone. Which means you haven't seen anything yet. And we are not prepared.

Picture California a few decades from now, a place so hot and arid the state's trademark orange and lemon trees have been replaced with olive trees that can handle the new climate. Alternating floods and droughts have made it impossible for the reservoirs to capture enough drinking water. The picturesque Highway 1, sections of which are already periodically being washed out by storm surges and mudslides, will have to be rerouted inland, possibly through a mountain. These aren't scenes from another deadly weather thriller like The Day After Tomorrow. They're all changes that California officials believe they need to brace for within the next decade or two. And they aren't alone. Across the U.S., it's just beginning to dawn on civic leaders that they'll need to help their communities brave coming dangers brought by climate change, from disappearing islands in Chesapeake Bay to dust bowls in the Plains and horrific hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet only 14 states are even planning, let alone implementing, climate-change adaptation plans, says Terri Cruce, a climate consultant in California. The other 36 apparently are hoping for a miracle.

More: www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-29/global-climate-change-freak-storms-are-the-new-normal/?cid=hp:mainpromo3

[humok]

Come on Lak....most no longer buy into that BS. In the 70's when the tornadoes tore thru Alabama that was unfortunate but not caused by man and I remember when the Mississippi flooded in the late sixties/early 70's and that was not caused by man and we have had mud slides as long as I can remember in California. The young buy into this crap because they do not remember the past and neglect to research weather patterns. Just another sheep.

[lakhota]

May 30, 2011 20:00:00 GMT -5 humok said:

Come on Lak....most no longer buy into that BS. In the 70's when the tornadoes tore thru Alabama that was unfortunate but not caused by man and I remember when the Mississippi flooded in the late sixties/early 70's and that was not caused by man and we have had mud slides as long as I can remember in California. The young buy into this crap because they do not remember the past and neglect to research weather patterns. Just another sheep.

'

I would not want you making even minor decisions in my life, including which toothpaste I should use.

[humok]

Nor I u for me....i DO NOT FOLLOW ANYONE OR ANYTHING BLINDLY nor do I beleive what a govt official says just because he is in a high office....

[privateinvestor]

I would not want you making even minor decisions in my life, including which toothpaste I should use.

Ok if you don't want humok for that task here's my suggestion for you Lak:

CREST Cavity Protection regular paste...unless you have dentures and then you will have to ask humok...

[lakhota]

Picture California a few decades from now, a place so hot and arid the state's trademark orange and lemon trees have been replaced with olive trees that can handle the new climate.

I look forward to olive trees in California. Hmmm... sounds like a good place for Israel...

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I use Sensodyne Whitening Toothpaste.

And I do think that our climate is changing.... and will continue to do so. How much and the cause thereof remains in dispute.

[privateinvestor]

May 30, 2011 20:24:30 GMT -5 ❤ mollymouser ❤ said:

I use Sensodyne Whitening Toothpaste.

And I do think that our climate is changing.... and will continue to do so. How much and the cause thereof remains in dispute.

It has been freezing out here in northern California and have the gas heat on most of the month of May which is weird...last year I never used the heat during the entire month of May..

BTW I will stick with Crest cavity protection in case you were wondering

[busymom]

Oddball winter here, and so far an odd spring. Haven't even been able to get most of my vegetable garden in yet. Hopefully the weather will cooperate long enough so I can "rush it all in" in one day soon! Sadly, it won't be one of my better-looking gardens. But, I am in it for the veggies.

[Virgil Showlion]

I'd be more willing to buy into climate change if either a) climate scientists could predict what specific climate changes will occur with even a smitch of accuracy, or b) the foremost proposals for "correcting" climate change weren't more dangerous/damaging than climate change itself.

I figure I'll be waiting a while.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

By the way, I'm in California and we have a lemon tree, a grapefruit tree, AND an olive tree.

[busymom]

Took a walk with DS today (between rainstorms) and the Monarch butterflies are here about 2 months early. What's up with that?!?

[lakhota]

May 30, 2011 22:31:07 GMT -5 ❤ mollymouser ❤ said:

By the way, I'm in California and we have a lemon tree, a grapefruit tree, AND an olive tree.

Glad to know you're adapting...

[b2r]

May 30, 2011 22:37:15 GMT -5 busymom said:

Took a walk with DS today (between rainstorms) and the Monarch butterflies are here about 2 months early. What's up with that?!?

a scorching drought and strong winds in Texas meant the butterflies just kept on moving north this year, and in unprecedented numbers.

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=news&cd=4&ved=0CEIQqQIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.livescience.com%2F14146-monarch-butterflies-migration.html&ei=yGLkTfGqGIa4sQOdq5kW&usg=AFQjCNEenU5oiI_sHrYC-VOiNEGbPBYpvg