Thank heavens we don’t live in Houston, oil capital of the U.S., where the remnants of Beryl, the earliest Category 5 hurricane to ever form over record hot Atlantic waters knocked out electricity to over two million people. Shortly afterward record atmospheric heat and humidity kicked in. A week later hundreds of thousands are still suffering. Death toll not yet known.
Thank heavens we don’t live in Iowa where skyrocketing home insurance prices related to increasing frequency of storms, tornadoes and flooding are causing some people to go without insurance, and some insurance companies to up and leave the area. Makes it hard to buy or sell a house.
Thank heavens we don’t live in New Delhi, (hundreds of heat deaths), Mecca, (over 1,300 heat deaths), Mexico City (heat, drought and water shortages), southern Brazil (1.8 million acres burned) or in the Pacific Northwest where a heat dome in 2021 caused all-time record temperatures higher than those in San Antonio, Texas, and caused an estimated 1,400 deaths in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon.
Earth, our home, has just recorded t13 straight months of record high monthly temperatures. On July 8, 2024, 146 million people in the U.S. lived under extreme heat advisories. Over 1,000 US temperature records were set in a few days in June.
Thank heavens we live in Juneau in the cool, wet rainforest. We can almost imagine that the climate crisis is elsewhere, if we ignore the increasing rainfall (20 more inches of yearly rain than 95 years ago), atmospheric rivers and increasing landslides. While we are at it let’s ignore also the failing king salmon runs, the die off of yellow cedars, the shrinking Mendenhall Glacier and the recent study showing the Juneau Icefield to be melting at twice the rate that it was before 2010. Let’s be sure to ignore the glacial outlet flooding that destroyed or damaged many of our neighbors’ houses along the river last year.
We are on an ignoring roll. So let’s join many of our business and elected leaders, and ignore the connections between burning oil, gas and coal, between permitting huge new fossil fuel projects like Willow and the Alaska Gas Line, and increasing carbon emissions, increasing global temperatures and climate disasters. We will have much company. A study of digital news stories about June 2024 temperature records and flash floods found that only 44% of 133 articles reviewed mentioned the climate crisis or global warming. Only 11% mentioned fossil fuels. (“Heated”, June 27, 2024)
But for our own sake and the sake of our children, let’s stop ignoring the facts and the connections between them regarding the climate crisis. We can educate ourselves about how to decrease emissions.
A good way to start? Come stand in solidarity with your friends and neighbors at the Climate Fair for a Cool Planet, July 27 at the Whale from 1:30- 5 p.m. Get climate information, hear some great musical acts and see climate-themed theater. Then keep it rolling all through the year with one of the organizations with tables at the Fair. Perhaps your great, great grandchildren will say “thank heavens.”
• Mike Tobin is a board member of 350 Juneau.
