Year 2, Month 8, Day 30: Pay No Attention To The Cyclone Behind The Curtain

The August 26 New Jersey Star-Ledger opines about the advent of Hurricane Irene:

We can now add Hurricane Irene among the symptoms that scientists warned we’d experience as global warming occurs.

Wind of up to 100 mph, predicted to lash the East Coast. Ocean waves as high as 12 feet. That’s in line with what scientists have said, that hurricanes would become more severe as ocean temperatures rise.

The comments section is a wellspring of stupid.

Sent on August 28, just before going out to check the windows and yard for wind-susceptible debris. The storm will hit later today.

If America responded to Irene in the same way it has dealt with climate change over the past decades, our television, newspapers and talk radio would be filled with voices asserting that hurricanes are a liberal plot, dueling pundits agreeing that the “science isn’t settled” on the existence of tropical storms, and blithe platitudes about how 100 mph winds and massive tidal surges are actually good for us.

Now imagine that we responded to climate change the way we’re dealing with Irene. We’d hear about current threat levels regularly in the media. Advice on preparation would be widely disseminated; strategies for mitigating the storms of the coming centuries would be part of our national conversation.

And that’s the difference: weather can’t be ignored, while climate moves on too grand a scale for us to notice. But climate change will bring weather the likes of which we cannot imagine. Let’s get ready.

Warren Senders