A good roundup showing why climate change has to be reckoned with in almost all walks of life and every community - either directly or indirectly. But I have to take issue with your takeway from the Washington Post headline on the profile of the Swannanoa River basin evacuees. The catastrophic desctruction along that river and dozens of others in the affected regions has little to do with new thresholds and far more to do with the known profound hazard in these steep-sloped regions from rare deluges from fading tropical systems. In the Great Flood of July 1916, a one-two punch from two hurricanes (one from the Gulf, the other from the Atlantic) turned those river basins into lakes and wrecked Asheville. Lots more in this thread on X: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1840507115552567761.html
Mr. Revkin, I'm not on X, so won't see any responses there, but I take issue with this: "The catastrophic desctruction along that river and dozens of others in the affected regions has little to do with new thresholds and far more to do with the known profound hazard in these steep-sloped regions from rare deluges from fading tropical systems."
"The climate is so warm that every storm or weather event is influenced by a warming climate,” Dr. Rood said. “It’s impossible to have an event, especially an extreme event, that doesn’t have some relation to climate change.”
One needn't be Dr. Rood's professional peer to follow his argument. What else does "warming climate" mean, but rare deluges becoming less rare, and tropical storms wreaking more destruction on land before fading away?
Andrew thank for this quick overview. Thanks for the link to the Rolling Stone article. I recall when it first appeared on our magazine racks in stores. I want to be more optimistic about the welfare of our younger generations: they will try to muddle through like my generation but they face such overwhelming challenges, greater than wondering if/when that you would be drafted for Vietnam.
Grateful to have you guys turning your writting in this direction, even if its just for one post.
I now live on the other side of a dividing line ... despite being firefighters, my husband I had our life decimated by a climate event (unprecedented wildfire in early 2020) that took absolutly everything. We then struggled through treacle rebuilding life made worse by profound government ineptitude, are now abandoned by the insurance industry, and are facing rising wildfire threat again.
None of this aftermath makes it into the news, nor academic journals. Yet, that aftermath is, in many ways, worse than the event. The media only shows you the events and the immediate rescue efforts, not the hollowed out life that follows.
It's a tough and lonely journey on the other side of that line –watching the world have moments of awareness before slipping back into padded distraction, while living with the brutal awareness that catastrophic disaster is just around the corner. We don't get the relief of sinking back into padded distraction. And, while we know emissions mitigation must be a priority, we are both exhausted that no-one is preparing to lessen the pain of what's rolling across the world, right now.
Wow, Margi, that's so terrible. I'm very sorry to hear about that, and my heart goes out to you and your family. I understand that the usual "persevere and things will get better" might not feel comforting right now, but I hope you can still find moments of hope along the way.
After 35 years of hyperventilating, 600 billion dollars worth of taxpayer money flushed down the toilet, scores/hundreds of predictions that never come to pass, conversation of nuclear energy completely shut down, censorship of any contrarian opinions, scientific mobs that form to destroy the careers of those who show countervailing evidence, recruitment of an army of virtue-signaling housewives who couldn't reliably convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, and countless articles like this that take one-off events and try to turn them into some sort of a pattern, any intelligent person could be forgiven for wondering what the true motives are behind science writers who keep banging this drum. It would be sad if it weren't so despicable.
We know 1. we are rapidly sliding int "climate hell"; 2. present plans and projects are far too little far too late; 3 only a radical government response, comparable to the response to WWII has a chance of saving 'the world as we know it' - preventing mass migrations and world-wide violence while civilizations collapse. Please join us in pursuing real, effective changes; we all must work together in demanding that the world turns away from misguided economic growth, the fantasy of a luxurious, all-electric future. The path we are on is cruel and genocidal.
haeschbach, president of Humane Civilization Worldwide
Running around with our hair on fire demanding degrowth and proclaiming we’re on the highway to hell isn’t going to fix anything.
In fact, it disarms of us of some of our most powerful tools to fight climate change (and maybe win)!
Right now, we ought to be looking at around a rise 3 degrees celsius by the end of the century, which is more difficult but I wouldn’t call it “hell.” Hell is the RCP 8.5 track we were on before the recent strides we’ve made in recent years.
Things are improving to meet the moment in a way that I personally never expected, and we can beat this thing without going back 200 years in our lifestyles.
I think you are drastically underestimating how much harder it will be to continue making our current kind of progress in a world that is falling apart at an accelerating pace, and which is filled with "single point of failure" risks. Before long, regions will be forced to get essentials like water, food, and power by any means they can, without concern for climate effects. People will pick using dirty diesel trucks to bring in supplies over letting their children starve every time.
That's why it really is necessary to intervene as much as we can right now. We won't be able to do it later.
I dare you, John, to say that what we are facing is not hell to the face of any of the people who just been through any of the escalating climate disasters around the world.
It's all getting bigger, fiercer, and more destructive ... and in the aftermath, once the media has moved on each of the survivors find thier life, thier health, and thier mental stability hollowed out. Government and untouched society have no idea how crippling it is.
I live in Houston, I’m absolutely no stranger to natural disasters.
Maybe I just have a much more severe definition of “Hell” than other people do.
I’m not a climate denier, all I’m saying is that we’ve already greatly improved our trajectory and will be able to continue to do so without ill-conceived degrowth policies
I mostly agree with you, Mr. Dodds. My own definition of "Hell" covers a wide range of probable climate-change trajectories, with various consequences of varying severity up to the extinction of all life, and each with a subjective component of individual and community tragedy. I agree, too, that the "green vortex" of solar+wind+battery penetration of the global energy market has greatly improved the probability of a less horrific trajectory than previously expected.
Technology may or may not help mitigate some other specific impacts (i.e. socialized costs) that have long taken their toll in human wellbeing and/or biodiversity. However, economic growth/degrowth itself, whether ill-conceived, well-conceived, or not conceived at all, has a role to play, even as global total fertility rate drops toward replacement value before the end of this century. Longer term, what will happen to the global economy and the biosphere as our population declines is highly uncertain, AFAICT.
OTOH, while the energy market is undergoing a transformation unforeseen as recently as 10 years ago, both global population and economic growth are still ongoing. Even if GHG emissions cease and the trend of global heat content is capped, humanity's aggregate "environmental" impacts will still be enormous over the coming decades.
Nonetheless, IMO you needn't fear for your comfort and convenience in the near term. The political prospects for degrowth, ill-conceived or otherwise, appear poor at this juncture, even with a Democratic victory next month. A tax either on fossil-fuel producers at the source or on net emissions as Mr. Hutcheson advocates, seems equally improbable right now. So far, the best we've been able to enact is to use public funds to subsidize ramp-up of renewable energy supplies and consumer adoption. I, for one, am in favor of any incremental collective action to take the profit out of selling fossil carbon.
People forget: we Americans do terrible re. mental health. Pursuing a simpler, ethical, ecologically minded lifestyle coincides with pursuing health and happiness (ethical mainly referring to forgiving, giving, cooperating and being compassionate rather than being vindictive, greedy, competitive with us-against-them thinking, etc. We must stop misguided economic developments that have grown like a cancer; we must restrict bank lending while taking care of people's needs. Consumerism has been bad for most people: Why individual steel cars for transportation instead of ultra-light vehicles and a dense network of light rail lines (most small, narrow-track? Why more air conditioning in stead of reflecting and heat radiating cooling white? Why not mostly plant-based diets, smaller buildings that are constructed of wood instead of building mansions of steel, concrete, and glass, etc.?
We describe a healthier, happier life than what Americans (and many newly rich in poor countries) today pursue. Most elderly people know, a materially lower standard of living was not bad; lack of modern medical care, major human rights violations, etc. caused much suffering.
"There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.
"They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention."
You evidently fall into the last category. If Andrew doesn't just ban you, you may provide a few minutes of entertainment before we get bored and ignore you.
LOL! "Howling spastic" seems a bit of a straw man, don't you think? And although there may be no climate emergency where you are, there plainly is for people in the path of Helene. Logic fail. Most likely a drive-by troll.
You're right: human activity doesn't cause storms and hurricanes by itself, it just makes them lash North America harder than they would otherwise. That is, human activity is a contributing cause, not the sole cause, of storms and hurricanes. Duh. Got any more arcane knowledge to impart?
Lets call the existing situation global overheating & keep confronting those doing the burning & those financing it. The money they accumulate will be worthless & no one will escape.
Even if a region avoid the worst direct climate impacts they cannot evade the consequences to the world around them and the greater economy they are dependent on. And when the best place to be in a warmer world becomes the preferred destination for climate refugees?
I don't follow this anymore. Every glich is climate change, when nothing happens it's also climate change. If contrary things happen it's also climate change. So now i read the disaster news as a devout follower, it's all climate change. Before it was warming of the earth, but that's not happening anymore. So now it's climate change. But climate is a long term item, incidents will not change the climate.
Dude, this is climate denial 101 with a side order of strawmen. Seriously, "Before it was warming of the earth, but that's not happening anymore." Do better or take your crap somewhere else.
Huh. Climate is average weather, and all weather is embedded in a climate. One event doesn't change climate, but when weather statistics change, we say climate is changing. And then there's physics. Climate is changing now, due to anthropogenic global warming, which is still happening at more than 0.2°C/decade. Hurricane Helene doesn't "prove" climate change, but we already know climate is changing weather events. IOW, all weather now is affected by climate change. Like Dr. Rood said:
“The climate is so warm that every storm or weather event is influenced by a warming climate. It’s impossible to have an event, especially an extreme event, that doesn’t have some relation to climate change.”
Yes, it's all climate change! Is that really so difficult to accept?
You mean like the one selling us Teslas and pretending to care about the planet but yet supporting another billionaire for President who thinks climate change is hoax?
Can we separate the hurricane story from the "climate crisis?" Note that Helene was not significant compared to Galveston's hurricane in 1900, which killed more than 10,000 people. These storms are dangerous, and have always been dangerous.
Just because hurricanes have been bigger in the past does not mean that climate change did not make this one worse. Follow the links in the article and you’ll see unarguable evidence that hurricanes today are more destructive because of climate change.
Why would we separate the stories? No one credible is claiming Helene "proves" anthropogenic climate change. That ship has long since sailed, Mr. Goodrich! AFAICT you have it backwards. "Climate" is "statistical weather". Thankfully, Helene killed fewer people than the Labor Day Storm of 1900 did. That storm may even have been more powerful than Helene. But we already know global climate is changing, because weather statistics around the world are changing. Helene "merely" added a datapoint to the growing upper tail of the curve of tropical cyclone destructiveness. And then there's the physics of global warming, as Prof. Dessler explained in the OP. So has Dr. Richard Rood, quoted in my previous comment.
No, we can't separate any weather disaster from the climate crisis. But all we can do about either of them, is to vote for collective action to decarbonize our economy by incrementally taking the profit out of selling fossil fuels. The pejorative trends associated with rising GHGs will be capped, though not reversed, when emissions reach zero. Then we can adapt to the warmer but now stable global climate.
I just came across a similar article from NYTimes as part of their Climate Forward Newsletter titled, "You can't hide from climate change." It also focuses on Asheville, NC.
..... till death do us part," must be extended to " ....till death and the consequences of climate change do us part " henceforth must be added in marriage vows in churches, though few and far between at present to hammer down the awareness for whatever it's worth.
A good roundup showing why climate change has to be reckoned with in almost all walks of life and every community - either directly or indirectly. But I have to take issue with your takeway from the Washington Post headline on the profile of the Swannanoa River basin evacuees. The catastrophic desctruction along that river and dozens of others in the affected regions has little to do with new thresholds and far more to do with the known profound hazard in these steep-sloped regions from rare deluges from fading tropical systems. In the Great Flood of July 1916, a one-two punch from two hurricanes (one from the Gulf, the other from the Atlantic) turned those river basins into lakes and wrecked Asheville. Lots more in this thread on X: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1840507115552567761.html
Mr. Revkin, I'm not on X, so won't see any responses there, but I take issue with this: "The catastrophic desctruction along that river and dozens of others in the affected regions has little to do with new thresholds and far more to do with the known profound hazard in these steep-sloped regions from rare deluges from fading tropical systems."
It seems clear to me, at least, that multiple thresholds were exceeded along Helene's track: SSTs at historic highs (earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153376/ocean-heat-for-hurricane-helene), soil already saturated by earlier weather systems (nytimes.com/2024/09/30/climate/hurricane-helene-inland-rains.html), and so forth. That was all in addition to drainage thresholds greatly exceeded by unprecedented rainfall.
Ultimately, all weather news is about climate. Ricky Rood was quoted in the NYTimes a couple of weeks ago (nytimes.com/2024/09/18/climate/central-europe-floods-global-warming.html), regarding another flooding event:
"The climate is so warm that every storm or weather event is influenced by a warming climate,” Dr. Rood said. “It’s impossible to have an event, especially an extreme event, that doesn’t have some relation to climate change.”
One needn't be Dr. Rood's professional peer to follow his argument. What else does "warming climate" mean, but rare deluges becoming less rare, and tropical storms wreaking more destruction on land before fading away?
Thank you in particular for your comments on the impact on the insurance industry and the possible silicone crisis as a result of climate change.
Andrew thank for this quick overview. Thanks for the link to the Rolling Stone article. I recall when it first appeared on our magazine racks in stores. I want to be more optimistic about the welfare of our younger generations: they will try to muddle through like my generation but they face such overwhelming challenges, greater than wondering if/when that you would be drafted for Vietnam.
Grateful to have you guys turning your writting in this direction, even if its just for one post.
I now live on the other side of a dividing line ... despite being firefighters, my husband I had our life decimated by a climate event (unprecedented wildfire in early 2020) that took absolutly everything. We then struggled through treacle rebuilding life made worse by profound government ineptitude, are now abandoned by the insurance industry, and are facing rising wildfire threat again.
None of this aftermath makes it into the news, nor academic journals. Yet, that aftermath is, in many ways, worse than the event. The media only shows you the events and the immediate rescue efforts, not the hollowed out life that follows.
It's a tough and lonely journey on the other side of that line –watching the world have moments of awareness before slipping back into padded distraction, while living with the brutal awareness that catastrophic disaster is just around the corner. We don't get the relief of sinking back into padded distraction. And, while we know emissions mitigation must be a priority, we are both exhausted that no-one is preparing to lessen the pain of what's rolling across the world, right now.
Wow, Margi, that's so terrible. I'm very sorry to hear about that, and my heart goes out to you and your family. I understand that the usual "persevere and things will get better" might not feel comforting right now, but I hope you can still find moments of hope along the way.
After 35 years of hyperventilating, 600 billion dollars worth of taxpayer money flushed down the toilet, scores/hundreds of predictions that never come to pass, conversation of nuclear energy completely shut down, censorship of any contrarian opinions, scientific mobs that form to destroy the careers of those who show countervailing evidence, recruitment of an army of virtue-signaling housewives who couldn't reliably convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, and countless articles like this that take one-off events and try to turn them into some sort of a pattern, any intelligent person could be forgiven for wondering what the true motives are behind science writers who keep banging this drum. It would be sad if it weren't so despicable.
{{Citation needed}}.
We know 1. we are rapidly sliding int "climate hell"; 2. present plans and projects are far too little far too late; 3 only a radical government response, comparable to the response to WWII has a chance of saving 'the world as we know it' - preventing mass migrations and world-wide violence while civilizations collapse. Please join us in pursuing real, effective changes; we all must work together in demanding that the world turns away from misguided economic growth, the fantasy of a luxurious, all-electric future. The path we are on is cruel and genocidal.
haeschbach, president of Humane Civilization Worldwide
https://humanecivilization.org/climate-emergency/
Running around with our hair on fire demanding degrowth and proclaiming we’re on the highway to hell isn’t going to fix anything.
In fact, it disarms of us of some of our most powerful tools to fight climate change (and maybe win)!
Right now, we ought to be looking at around a rise 3 degrees celsius by the end of the century, which is more difficult but I wouldn’t call it “hell.” Hell is the RCP 8.5 track we were on before the recent strides we’ve made in recent years.
Things are improving to meet the moment in a way that I personally never expected, and we can beat this thing without going back 200 years in our lifestyles.
I think you are drastically underestimating how much harder it will be to continue making our current kind of progress in a world that is falling apart at an accelerating pace, and which is filled with "single point of failure" risks. Before long, regions will be forced to get essentials like water, food, and power by any means they can, without concern for climate effects. People will pick using dirty diesel trucks to bring in supplies over letting their children starve every time.
That's why it really is necessary to intervene as much as we can right now. We won't be able to do it later.
Tax net emissions NOW! Tomorrow the optimum rate will increase.
I dare you, John, to say that what we are facing is not hell to the face of any of the people who just been through any of the escalating climate disasters around the world.
It's all getting bigger, fiercer, and more destructive ... and in the aftermath, once the media has moved on each of the survivors find thier life, thier health, and thier mental stability hollowed out. Government and untouched society have no idea how crippling it is.
This is real, and it's GETTING WORSE.
I live in Houston, I’m absolutely no stranger to natural disasters.
Maybe I just have a much more severe definition of “Hell” than other people do.
I’m not a climate denier, all I’m saying is that we’ve already greatly improved our trajectory and will be able to continue to do so without ill-conceived degrowth policies
I mostly agree with you, Mr. Dodds. My own definition of "Hell" covers a wide range of probable climate-change trajectories, with various consequences of varying severity up to the extinction of all life, and each with a subjective component of individual and community tragedy. I agree, too, that the "green vortex" of solar+wind+battery penetration of the global energy market has greatly improved the probability of a less horrific trajectory than previously expected.
Technology may or may not help mitigate some other specific impacts (i.e. socialized costs) that have long taken their toll in human wellbeing and/or biodiversity. However, economic growth/degrowth itself, whether ill-conceived, well-conceived, or not conceived at all, has a role to play, even as global total fertility rate drops toward replacement value before the end of this century. Longer term, what will happen to the global economy and the biosphere as our population declines is highly uncertain, AFAICT.
OTOH, while the energy market is undergoing a transformation unforeseen as recently as 10 years ago, both global population and economic growth are still ongoing. Even if GHG emissions cease and the trend of global heat content is capped, humanity's aggregate "environmental" impacts will still be enormous over the coming decades.
Nonetheless, IMO you needn't fear for your comfort and convenience in the near term. The political prospects for degrowth, ill-conceived or otherwise, appear poor at this juncture, even with a Democratic victory next month. A tax either on fossil-fuel producers at the source or on net emissions as Mr. Hutcheson advocates, seems equally improbable right now. So far, the best we've been able to enact is to use public funds to subsidize ramp-up of renewable energy supplies and consumer adoption. I, for one, am in favor of any incremental collective action to take the profit out of selling fossil carbon.
People forget: we Americans do terrible re. mental health. Pursuing a simpler, ethical, ecologically minded lifestyle coincides with pursuing health and happiness (ethical mainly referring to forgiving, giving, cooperating and being compassionate rather than being vindictive, greedy, competitive with us-against-them thinking, etc. We must stop misguided economic developments that have grown like a cancer; we must restrict bank lending while taking care of people's needs. Consumerism has been bad for most people: Why individual steel cars for transportation instead of ultra-light vehicles and a dense network of light rail lines (most small, narrow-track? Why more air conditioning in stead of reflecting and heat radiating cooling white? Why not mostly plant-based diets, smaller buildings that are constructed of wood instead of building mansions of steel, concrete, and glass, etc.?
We describe a healthier, happier life than what Americans (and many newly rich in poor countries) today pursue. Most elderly people know, a materially lower standard of living was not bad; lack of modern medical care, major human rights violations, etc. caused much suffering.
It may take something like that for people to accept a tax on net emissions of CO2! Even least cost solutions still involve some inconvenience.
Be polite or you're gone. You have been warned.
Also, I posted about whether climate change is an emergency here: https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/is-climate-change-an-emergency
Heh. Assuming you're an actual person, I for one suspect you don't actually believe what you're saying, but are here with a private agenda (theconversation.com/some-online-conspiracy-spreaders-dont-even-believe-the-lies-theyre-spewing-237730):
"There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.
"They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention."
You evidently fall into the last category. If Andrew doesn't just ban you, you may provide a few minutes of entertainment before we get bored and ignore you.
LOL! "Howling spastic" seems a bit of a straw man, don't you think? And although there may be no climate emergency where you are, there plainly is for people in the path of Helene. Logic fail. Most likely a drive-by troll.
You're right: human activity doesn't cause storms and hurricanes by itself, it just makes them lash North America harder than they would otherwise. That is, human activity is a contributing cause, not the sole cause, of storms and hurricanes. Duh. Got any more arcane knowledge to impart?
Lets call the existing situation global overheating & keep confronting those doing the burning & those financing it. The money they accumulate will be worthless & no one will escape.
You can run but you can’t hide- so stop running and do something about it!
I cannot escape it, but I will confront it!
Even if a region avoid the worst direct climate impacts they cannot evade the consequences to the world around them and the greater economy they are dependent on. And when the best place to be in a warmer world becomes the preferred destination for climate refugees?
Yes.
https://open.substack.com/pub/christophermeestoerato/p/7-days-7-ways?r=12utpl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
I don't follow this anymore. Every glich is climate change, when nothing happens it's also climate change. If contrary things happen it's also climate change. So now i read the disaster news as a devout follower, it's all climate change. Before it was warming of the earth, but that's not happening anymore. So now it's climate change. But climate is a long term item, incidents will not change the climate.
Dude, this is climate denial 101 with a side order of strawmen. Seriously, "Before it was warming of the earth, but that's not happening anymore." Do better or take your crap somewhere else.
Huh. Climate is average weather, and all weather is embedded in a climate. One event doesn't change climate, but when weather statistics change, we say climate is changing. And then there's physics. Climate is changing now, due to anthropogenic global warming, which is still happening at more than 0.2°C/decade. Hurricane Helene doesn't "prove" climate change, but we already know climate is changing weather events. IOW, all weather now is affected by climate change. Like Dr. Rood said:
“The climate is so warm that every storm or weather event is influenced by a warming climate. It’s impossible to have an event, especially an extreme event, that doesn’t have some relation to climate change.”
Yes, it's all climate change! Is that really so difficult to accept?
No-one will escape? You're kidding. The billionaires in their bunkers will do just fine.
You mean like the one selling us Teslas and pretending to care about the planet but yet supporting another billionaire for President who thinks climate change is hoax?
Yep him and all the rest of the thieving parasites who continue to steal the wealth of the world.
Can we separate the hurricane story from the "climate crisis?" Note that Helene was not significant compared to Galveston's hurricane in 1900, which killed more than 10,000 people. These storms are dangerous, and have always been dangerous.
Just because hurricanes have been bigger in the past does not mean that climate change did not make this one worse. Follow the links in the article and you’ll see unarguable evidence that hurricanes today are more destructive because of climate change.
Why would we separate the stories? No one credible is claiming Helene "proves" anthropogenic climate change. That ship has long since sailed, Mr. Goodrich! AFAICT you have it backwards. "Climate" is "statistical weather". Thankfully, Helene killed fewer people than the Labor Day Storm of 1900 did. That storm may even have been more powerful than Helene. But we already know global climate is changing, because weather statistics around the world are changing. Helene "merely" added a datapoint to the growing upper tail of the curve of tropical cyclone destructiveness. And then there's the physics of global warming, as Prof. Dessler explained in the OP. So has Dr. Richard Rood, quoted in my previous comment.
No, we can't separate any weather disaster from the climate crisis. But all we can do about either of them, is to vote for collective action to decarbonize our economy by incrementally taking the profit out of selling fossil fuels. The pejorative trends associated with rising GHGs will be capped, though not reversed, when emissions reach zero. Then we can adapt to the warmer but now stable global climate.
I just came across a similar article from NYTimes as part of their Climate Forward Newsletter titled, "You can't hide from climate change." It also focuses on Asheville, NC.
Mine came out first!
Yes, indeed! You should be writing for the Times!
..... till death do us part," must be extended to " ....till death and the consequences of climate change do us part " henceforth must be added in marriage vows in churches, though few and far between at present to hammer down the awareness for whatever it's worth.