I just finished watching a newscast that featured the record heat, storms and flooding in the country without any mention of climate change.
This even though the period from July 3 through July 6 were the hottest days on Earth ever recorded, while Vermont received months of rainfall in an hour.
It’s not only time to stop calling this the “new normal” (as I have done in previous columns) and realize it is the “new abnormal,” and it’s not going away.
The record-shattering heat included an unprecedented heat wave in the North Atlantic, record heat in Texas (rivaling the Sahara Desert for the hottest place on Earth), Mexico and China, plus the extreme heat and wildfires raging in Canada and blanketing the East Coast with never before seen smoke.
On the flood side, nearly 9 inches of rain fell in the Chicago area, a record. New Deli, India recorded the wettest day in its history this July.
There have been deadly floods in New York, flash floods in Florida, and of course, the “atmospheric rivers” of rain that California experienced last winter.
While all of this may seem biblical to some, the oil industry, climate deniers, the Murdoch news industry along with Saudi Arabia and Russia have promoted a campaign they believe can extend the life of oil and gas development-doomism.
Doomism promotes the idea that the world has already succumbed to climate change and there is no way of reversing it; going so far as to predict human extinction.
As one young activist put it: “If it really is too late, why am I even trying?”
This is no longer a fringe idea. According to a Yale University study, 89% of those surveyed expressed doubt or pessimism about people’s willingness to reduce global warming.
This, while doomism has been spreading on social media. The hashtag #climatedoom has more than 1 million views, with #climatedoomism having some 500,000 views.
In previous columns I, like other climate activists and scientists, have warned that the world will reach the predicted climate “tipping point” of another 1.5C (2 F) by midcentury, resulting in an irreversible climate impacting us with things like the current heat wave and severe storms we are experiencing.
This was meant to shock people into elevating climate as a priority issue. Doomism, however, has weaponized this.
The coming 1.5 C tipping point, plus the unprecedented heat and storms (ocean temperatures in Miami reached 90 degrees), are being used to convince people there is nothing that can be done to stop global warming.
Acceptance of this, of course, leads to business as usual, burning fossil fuels and disengagement from the fight against global warming.
Perhaps it explains why climate change, an existential threat, is only 13th out of the top 20 concerns of U.S. voters.
It’s critical that doomism not become readily acceptable.
Climate scientists are unanimous that despite the coming tipping point, we’re not doomed. Rather, they stress that if we fast-track climate measures, i.e. reducing fossil fuel emissions, global warming can still be stopped.
This, of course, all comes down to politics.
More than half the Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives in the 118th Congress reject the reality of climate change: 110 in the House, 39 in the Senate.
President Joe Biden, on the other hand incorporated climate policy into every single government agency in his first 100 days in office and ushered the “Inflation Reduction Act” into law. The act can reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.
Our political world is beset by many things —Russia’s war in Ukraine, gun violence, abortion rights, culture wars, former President Donald Trump’s indictments, to name a few — and it can be overwhelming to include considering climate change as the existential threat it is in the coming elections.
However, this is the world we find ourselves in and, despite all good intentions of those individuals reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, the only way to stop global warming is through political action, which means voting for those politicians who support stopping fossil fuel emissions and against those who don’t.
The world needs a leader on this issue. Biden has shown he can be that leader, if he has a Democratic House and Senate. As always, it’s up to us to Vote Climate in 2024.