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California firefighters confront a threat that probably isn’t in their contracts — a fire tornado.
We’ve all been preoccupied of late with the pandemic, which has taken over our lives whether we catch it or not, and no wonder it has bedazzled us. Contrary to what you might have read in incoherent rants on Twitter, this is the worst public health emergency in modern history, has precipitated the worst economic emergency since the Great Depression, is threatening to take down our health care system, our education system and the 2020 election, if not the whole country.
So don’t feel at all guilty about being preoccupied. But as a public service, I want to bring you up to date on what else has been happening all this time that we’ve been preoccupied, to reinforce the old adage: remember it always seems darkest just before it gets completely black.
California is burning in more ways than one. It’s on fire — as of yesterday, 92 wildfires were ravaging 200,000 acres across the state, having destroyed nearly 200 structures and having forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes despite fears of contracting the coronavirus in shelters. None of the fires was contained, and the state was able to field only 30 of its 77 firefighting crews, because the state prisoners who provide most of the manpower are sick with COVID-19. Conditions were so hot and dry near Lake Tahoe this week that fires there spawned fire tornadoes (for the first time in its history, the National Weather Service included the probability of fire tornadoes in its official forecast.)
California is burning up in a monstrous heat wave. In the midst of a prolonged heat wave across the southwestern states, Death Valley on Sunday recorded a temperature of 130 degrees Fahrenheit, which when validated may stand as the hottest temperature ever recorded on earth. Demand for electricity for cooling was so great that California had to use rolling blackouts — for the first time in 19 years — to keep the grid from crashing. It succeeded — just barely, and so far.
It’s not just us. The Arctic Is on Fire Again, and It’s Even Worse This Time. And As Amazon burns, farmers defend lighting fires to clear land. And Heatwave devastates Europe’s crops | Guardian Weekly | guardian.co.uk
Meanwhile, the water is rising in Florida. The sea level is not only rising in Florida, it is rising at a rate that has been accelerating for 30 years. Along parts of the coast, it is now estimated that the water is rising at a rate of a third of an inch a year. Sunny day flooding — in which streets, roads and farm fields are submerged in water that did not get there from rain, but rose from below — is becoming common along the southeast Florida coast, and elsewhere along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. All those who study it agree — it’s going to get worse, fast.
Meanwhile, the hurricane season is ramping up. There are at the moment six tropical depressions at work in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans trying to become hurricanes, two of them trying to become hurricanes headed for the southeast United States. This year’s season has already been unusually active, and is forecast to become explosively more so in the next month and a half.
Meanwhile, back in Iowa, who needs hurricanes when you have derechos? On August 10 a derecho — a trendy new world for what we used to call a squall line of conjoined thunderstorms, beat Iowa half to death with 140-mile-per-hour winds (that would be a Category Four hurricane, and there are only five categories) that destroyed or damaged 10 million acres of crops and countless farm structures, and left cities such as Cedar Rapids, Marshalltown and Iowa City looking like Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Half a million people lost power, many for more than a week. Damages were well over a billion dollars.
Meanwhile in Africa, The Biblical locust plagues of 2020 are afflicting dozens of East Africa countries and, to close the circle back in California, a Case Of Plague Confirmed In California For First Time In Years. Do you get the impression at all that God’s trying to tell us something?
Now if despite all this you should find yourself feeling unaccountably good, and hopeful, and optimistic about our future — call me. I’m here for you. I’ll fix it.
It is sad to see so many disasters. But the stock market is up, so there’s that.
Can you hear the people sing?
Yup, you’re always a ray of anti-sunshine.
You’re welcome. I help prevent vitamin D overdose.
Excellent reality check. Welcome to exponential climate change. It seems to affect others somewhere else…until your number is up.
It’s no fun being a Cassandra but I appreciate you for it!
Already a decade ago, when after surveying the news and scientific models I had to admit our goose is cooked, I used to get a steady feed of disaster after disaster, gathering like a tsunami. Quite a lot of it was about nonhuman losses, such as mass die-offs of marine species or colony collapse syndrome among bees. Such news continues to pile up. Your survey is more narrowly confined to human impacts, which is not a criticism, but I want to remind credulous readers that there ought to be wider concern. The image at this link (https://antarisconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Climate-Change-and-COVID.jpg) puts things in perspective.
At least three of the sites I used to read regularly stopped surveying disaster news (turned attentions elsewhere) or have gone substantially silent. It’s unfair to say that those sites/authors have given up. Rather, in the face of overwhelming, discontinuous destruction, it makes sense to direct one’s energies where they might be most useful. In contrast, immediate concerns take priority for those unable to recognize the tsunami bearing down on us. Thoughtful, effective planners we are not.
No matter the election outcome, at least the country will be lead by capable polymath leaders who saw these afflictions coming, and therefore, pledge their extraordinary skill set to the noble task of guiding the country out of danger.
Their unparalleled perspective in all matters of science and economics will no doubt inspire the populace into an astonishingly cohesive nation.
And since a leader emerges out of a careful screening process by parties which are themselves conclaves of outstanding polymaths of great wisdom; incorruptible patriots that go out of their way not to succumb to tribalism; I think your pessimism is unwarranted; especially for someone of your age who should know by now; everything can only get better, and capitalism will bring the advent of the ‘American Dream’ uniformly spread throughout the world, …as that’s what was in the cards all along.
You should be a speechwriter. You made me shed a tear.
;-)
Thanks Ken.
I thought this would make a “great” little snippet to read out as political ad in the weirdo dystopian world we’re enthusiastically marching into …
Alternatively … I thought it could provides a little chuckle if you’re just a jaded, semi-inebriated bloke watching the shit show from a distance…
As God is my witness I mean no disrespect…but is this serious, or is it a parody of sorts? I honestly don’t know.
I mean no disrespect either, but with hundreds of essays available for context, if you honestly can’t figure out what I’m doing here, I honestly don’t know how to help you.
Tom, I’m not answering your article, rather the comment by ‘Unhinged’ directly above. I fully agree with you in these matters. Ken is also answering the ‘Unhinged’ comment.
Sorry. The viewer I see these on doesn’t show me all the information. I should have checked. Bite my tongue.
Come on Greg … don’t force me to ruin the aesthetics of my prose with a ‘/s’
God forbid that I should besmirch the aesthetics of your prose!
The real “fix” … How many, “Climate change is a hoax.” posts did you have to delete so far?
You have 4 (or 5) actual posts by people who get it. My bet is 10 trolls explaining how it isn’t happening.
Oddly enough, we don’t get trolls here. In the entire ten-year-plus history of the Daily Impact I have blocked exactly one commenter and have deleted no posts (except for spam, of course, which is handled automatically).
“… remember it always seems darkest just before it gets completely black.”
I’m telling ya, that’s some Carlinesque sh+t right there (had me rollin’). You’ve got the delivery, I’ve seen it, the material well is full (obviously), and I’m convinced there’s big money out there on the circuit for an apocalyptic comic.
And if you aren’t in it for the money because you believe it to be the root of all evil, do it for the groupies.
A side note: I read recently that the fires to the north of the Arctic circle are of the type that were not supposed to be showing up, at least on this planet, until the year 2500 at the earliest.
So now we have 500 years sooner than expected on the board. I thought the tundra melting down 90 years before anyone could possibly have anticipated was the ultimate mea culpa, but 500 years?
At this point, climate scientist should just give it up. Seriously, what purpose are they serving? Clearly, they do not grasp the exponential function, the number one prerequisite for doing their jobs, and they can’t win a simple debate, with morons.
One hundred percent of the Republican Party, as represented in Congress, is still in official, public, and quite often, very aggressive denial of man-made climate change.
That’s 100%. Not 99%, there is no independent minded junior Republican Congressmen saying “wait a minute, let’s look at the science here, forget about the kids and the grandkids, our own very important lives could be at stake!” Nope, they are all on board the Insane Express Train.
That’s failure, where I come from, with a capital F. I now have the climate science community ranked below American infrastructure, which I believe is still rated as a D+?
Alea Jacta Est
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=iAXKN3y4SYs&feature=emb_logo
“Hey, where did my ice shelf go? It was there yesterday.”
“Does this mean I no longer have a job?”
I lived in the Prescott, Arizona area for a bit and the area has tons of small tornadoes – you could barely call them tornadoes because of how small they are, although some got a little bit big, and I had one go over my shop and make my ears pop, I met a guy who’d been picked up by one and thrown into something and was a bit gimpy as a result of this, and they have an occasional habit of sucking up things, like tables at flea markets, and sucking them far up into the sky. Fun, most of the time. One time though, one came through that was big enough that it might be dangerous, and made a sound like a train – I ducked and covered for that one.
ANYWAY …. we also had miniature derechos. Basically, imagine a tornado that doesn’t spin. Just a straight line. I never really thought about it much, that along with tornadoes there might be straight-lines that are bigger than the toy ones I experienced, but I guess those scale up too.
I live in Alabama. Our weather-all year-has been the best it’s ever been. Plenty of rain, sub 90’s temps, and lower than normal humidity. Normally August is blitzed by the heat but all is still green. We do military government contracting and security services so everybody is working at home still getting paid. We went for Trump last time and things have only gotten better. The market here for doom is thin… but the piper will be paid
Conditions are much the same here in northern West Virginia. Isn’t it good to know that it’s their end of the boat that is sinking?
Thank you for the definition of derecho, not so mysterious just usually referred to by sailors.
I’m so glad to know that our fearless leaders are so wise & honorable. If only citizens would follow advice – rake the forest, skip the mask & go back to work(it is what it is), forget about Social Security, and so on; capitalism would work its magic and we would all benefit. (And pigs will fly)
Things seem to be playing out in a manner eerily similar to your book. I watch with trepidation.