Hurricane Ida slams into New Orleans on its way to New York City.
Hurricane Ida, it seems, may have accomplished what a half-century of accumulated scientific knowledge and pleading failed to do: crack the indifference toward climate change of the opinion leaders of this bloated, self-indulgent, low-information, self-congratulatory culture of ours. The spectacle of a vicious Category Four hurricane unleashing 170-mile-per hour wind gusts on New Orleans, southern Louisiana and Mississippi, then churning across the continent, dumping torrential rains and spinning off tornadoes to inflict similar damage and even worse mortality on New York City, New York State, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania — well it got through to some of our talking heads.
As I watched the television coverage I saw blood drain from the faces, and heard tremors in the voices of people who were awakening to the sheer magnitude of this unprecedented event, and its dreadful significance — that this which has never happened before is going to happen again. Frequently. The veneer slipped off more than a few news anchors’ beautiful faces, who virtually barked at their interviewees, “What are we going to do about this?!”
“This,” of course, was more than the first hurricane ever to come out of the Gulf of Mexico and hammer New York City to its knees. (I know, remnants of other hurricanes from the Gulf have brought heavy rains to the east coast, but nothing close to this magnitude — or death toll.) “This” was also the raging wildfires in California, now threatening the mansions of the rich and famous in Lake Tahoe, whose smoke recently caused New York City to record its worst air quality in 14 years. It was the implacable drought gripping the agricultural heartland, the searing heat wave baking the Northwest, the tornadoes ravaging Tennessee, the rising seawater plaguing the coasts everywhere.
It is dawning on, and terrifying, the Beautiful Spokespeople that climate change is no longer a threat. It’s here. The long emergency foreseen by Howard Kunstler and many others decades ago has begun. It is increasingly obvious to the most unwilling observers that not only is this emergency not going to go away, it is going to get steadily worse. Climate change has center stage right now, but many other forces and trends are contributing to the gathering storm: the ravages of industrial agriculture (depleted topsoil, poisoned waters, dead zones in our estuaries); the faltering of the American oil industry, on which just about every aspect of our pandered modern life depends; the depletion of surface and underground water sources without which our agriculture and our cities cannot survive; the aging of our electric grid, highways, bridges and dams, now growing feeble and barely able to meet the demands of life and commerce; the migration of people — just a trickle now, but soon to be in the millions — away from newly uninhabitable places on the coast and in the spreading deserts.
For years the talking heads — the star pundits, the heavyweight politicians — have given lip service to the can they’ve been kicking down the road, earnestly promising studies, and future actions someday soon, and giving grave attention. Well, the can is a barrel of hardened concrete now, and not very kickable. You could hurt yourself.
Denial is durable, of course, and the talking heads don’t get paid for scaring the crap out of people, so it may well be that they will repair their veneer of confidence in American exceptionalism like they repair their makeup after a few hours under hot lights, clear their throats and resume singing the praises of endless growth, of building back bigger and better, amen.
But this past week, many of their eyes bugged and jaws dropped as they glimpsed, as through a glass darkly, the future into which we all must go. And they were afraid. Ida did that. Thank you, Ida.
“What are we going to do about this?!”
Too funny. Sentences like that are all I seem to read these days. I call it the “we syndrome.” We need to do this … and we need to do that! We must cooperated as a species and sign some treaties! We should pass the legislation necessary to get us out of this fix or we will be spoiling the future of our great-great grandchildren!
And so on. I almost always respond to these directionless “we” calls by writing this sentence; one I have written well over one hundred times the past ten years and until quite recently, mostly to deafening silence; Solar Radiation Management is coming soon, to planet near you, everything else, is Kabuki.
I’m one of those who believe it’s already being done. I scoffed when I first heard the term “chemtrail” but after searching my memory and scrutinizing photos from my and my parents’ photo albums, I had to admit that modern jet trails just don’t look the same.. You never used to see those long streaks across the sky, or the fibrous appearance as it spread out, or fair-weather skies that were more white than blue.
If you know that air travel will heat up the Earth, you might add something to the fuel that would shield the Earth, at least temporarily, and forestall the worst effects until later.
Also I’m not quite sure how the We Syndrome relates to SRM. Are you saying that there’s little “we” can do, but “they” will do something – and that something will be drastic, like geo-engineering?
The We Syndrome applies to all those who believe there is still time to sign treaties and pass legislation and regrow forests and put and end to rape and plunder fossil fuel economies, or at the very least, voluntarily de-grow them; and who also believe that “we” will actually do all of these things and more because … “we” must!
SRM has nothing to do with the “we” people, who are mostly well meaning academics, media types, pundits, bloggers, YouTube hosts, and everyday concerned citizens as well.
Policy makers can also be “we” people, although what their true motivation is, and whether they are in the loop or out of it, can be to hard to tell, but really doesn’t matter either way.
SRM is the plan of the super-elite. It is the only plan on their drawing boards, other than seeking maximum profit opportunities in the short time left before it’s forced implementation.
Note: I’m agnostic on the Chemtrail Conspiracy, mainly because it is a thing of the past, as spraying reflective particles in the atmosphere is now official policy.
Had a bit of holyshit myself up here in New Hampshire. Just a couple of weeks ago storm Henri was a direct hit on New England (which is rare) but mostly fizzled into nothing. Another Katrina is worrisome of course, but comfortably removed from where I am. So when I woke up to the news that Ida had roared out of the South and brought tornadoes and severe flooding to the Northeast, even a hardened doomer like me thought “How did THAT happen?”
I couldn’t bring myself to watch any videos, even. My daughter was in a basement Air BnB just a few weeks ago in NYC. Time to have a little chat with her civil-engineer husband and convince them not to book any more of those.
And where are all our climate refugees going to go? To “safe” areas, where they will compete for jobs and housing, stressing infrastructure even more? Probably live in those basement apartments, when they can’t find anything better.
Have a good holiday weekend, everyone.
“ Well the can is a barrel of hardened concrete now and not very kickable” I can think of an interesting cartoon for that “lol” -if I could draw I would send it to you.
I generally avoid mainstream media but was interested in how they would react to Ida and what followed. Most of the “talking heads” have been stuck in the first stage of grief – denial (Kubler-Ross Model) for a long time. Watching them slip into stage 2 – anger i.e. fear – was very interesting. I sense that many will boomerang right back into stage 1. Unfortunately (for them) the only way through this is to put your head down, your shoulder into it and move ahead. The alternative is doing nothing and it is obvious how that is going.
We moved here 15 years ago, a careful deliberate choice of locations as we moved into the final stage of grief – acceptance. Good soil, good water, a food hub, a small town with excellent facilities within 10 mins, a railway, relatively temperate climate were all factors in our choice. The climate is not so temperate any more but we adapt. Food plants on the property are being changed based on this past year as are livestock choices. If anything COVID accelerated some of those changes.
Enjoyed your post – as always!
Sounds like you are among the ones who will participate in Earth.2. I’m curious — what part of the county is “here?”
Maritime PNW
Anne, out of curiosity, what state did you move to?
Industrial history has stored up quite a lot of developments that have delayed manifestations. Although it’s impossible to establish conclusively (and fundamentally meaningless to try) the tipping point when that storehouse transformed into inevitability, many doomers who have made a concerted effort to (try to) understand the shape and magnitude of Kunstler’s Long Emergency (just one name for it) concluded that the last, best time to act to forestall catastrophe was roughly 40 years ago. Lots of interim dates and blown thresholds reinforce the “already too late” analysis, not least of which were peak oil around 2006 and the risible 350 ppm target that was exceeded before 350.org even came into existence. Thus, all the hand-wringing, come-to-Jesus moments, and “Holy shit!” dawning of awareness being broadcast in the full glare of the camera lens are like crocodile tears to me. It’s been possible to see all this coming for some decades now, and being this late to the party garners no particular sympathy from me. Time to grow up and face the music.
” … the risible 350 ppm target that was exceeded before 350.org even came into existence.”
Didn’t know that. Unbelievable. What makes it even more pathetic is carbon ppm is irrelevant, and always has been, it’s total greenhouses gases in the atmosphere that matters.
Right now, using the most conservative forcing value for methane, we are “officially” at 503 ppm GhG equivalent, but that excludes 40 other greenhouses gases, and if we added into the mix a more realistic methane forcing value, we would be well above 600.
But what are we all focused on? Carbon at 420. Why? Because that’s how “we” roll. … lol …
Good stuff.
I’m unaware of calculations (annual, cumulative, or trending) for all GhGs as a composite, but I’m relatively confident that the numbers track against human population a/k/a demand and form an exponential curve upwards like most of the disaster graphs available today. The EPA has a series of calculators that convert different human activities in terms of global warming potentials (GWPs) and CO2 equivalents (CO2E):
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references
Although I possess numerical literacy sufficient to use the calculators (unlike a large swath of the public), it’s heedless information like all those fitness trackers. If one takes the steps (literally and figuratively) to be healthy or avoid adding unnecessarily to one’s carbon footprint (again, a proxy for GhGs), precise measurements are unimportant.
Nah, they are just vapor trails. Jet engines don’t put out enough volume to make a difference. Stopping the increase in GHG emissions is a task beyond human doing. Renewables produce a tiny percentage of the energy needed to run the world. Hopes are pinned on fusion that is always just about ready.
I expect that by ‘we’ the talking heads mean their own professional management class. They will do what they have done for about 40 years; concentrate whatever is left around themselves. They think of themselves as the adults, and they are, if we are in an episode of South Park. So it is the kids, ie. ordinary citizens, who must act, and it will be done despite the PMC not by them. They are desperately hanging on to fading legitimacy, I think it is dawning awareness of that draining their colour.
There seems to be more talk on the mediasphere these days about ‘adaptation’ rather than ‘mitigation’ where climate change is concerned. However, one commentator (I can’t recall his name) brought up “society’s diminishing capacity for adaptation”… True. We haven’t the resources to maintain what we have, much less “build back better”. This seems obvious to me.
I posted this quote here at The Daily Impact long ago, but here I feel moved to do it again:
“Those not bothered by problems which are still far off will be scared sh*tless when the problems are near. [人無遠慮，必有近憂。
]” (Confucius, Analects 15:11)
Really? Confucius said “shitless?”
It’s my own (very loose) translation. :P
And now, Senator Joe Manchin is in charge of drafting legislation to combat climate change.