The evidence for the consequences of global warming is appearing with alarming frequency. This morning's headlines are filled with tales of deadly weather: "At least four people were killed and about 40 injured when a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night"; "two people are dead in northern Kansas after tornadoes cut a diagonal path across the state"; "[t]wo Maryland men with heart conditions died this week" from the East Coast heat wave. These eight deaths come on top of reports earlier this week that the heat wave "claimed the lives of 17 people" and the wave of deadly storms killed 11 more: "six in Michigan, two in Indiana and one each in Iowa and Connecticut," as well as one man in New York. Tornadoes this year are being reported at record levels. States of emergency have been declared in Minnesota, California, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Michigan because of floods and wildfires. Counties in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota, and Wisconsin have been declared disaster areas due to the historic flooding that has breached dams, inundated towns, and caused major crop damage, sending commodity futures to new records. The floodwaters are continuing down the Mississippi River, with "crests of 10 feet or more above flood level" for "at least the next two weeks."
GLOBAL BOILING: This tragic, deadly, and destructive weather -- not to mention the droughts in Georgia, California, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, North Dakota, and elsewhere across the country -- are consistent with the changes scientists predicted would come with global warming. Gov. Chet Culver (D-IA) called the three weeks of storms that gave rise to the floods in his state "historic in proportion," saying "very few people could anticipate or prepare for that type of event." Culver is, unfortunately, wrong. As far back as 1995, analysis by the National Climatic Data Center showed that the United States "had suffered a statistically significant increase in a variety of extreme weather events." In 2007, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it is "very likely" that man-made global warming will bring an "increase in frequency of hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation." The Nobel Prize-winning panel of thousands of scientists and government officials also found, "Altered frequencies and intensities of extreme weather, together with sea level rise, are expected to have mostly adverse effects on natural and human systems." In 2002, scientists said that "increased precipitation, an expected outcome of climate change, may cause losses of US corn production to double over the next 30 years -- additional damage that could cost agriculture $3 billion per year." Scientists have also found that the "West will see devastating droughts as global warming reduces the amount of mountain snow and causes the snow that does fall to melt earlier in the year."
WAKE-UP CALL?: Of the Memorial Day storms that killed eight people and "led to about $160 million in claims," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) rose on the Senate floor on June 5 to say, "the storm may serve as a wake-up call to those of us who have become somewhat complacent about severe weather warnings." The next day, Grassley joined 37 of his colleagues to filibuster climate legislation, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. This week, conservatives filibustered two more bills to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and support renewable energy and energy efficiency. In response to "[T]he most destructive flood in Indiana history," estimated to have caused "$126 million in damages," Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) told reporters that President Bush "called 'simply to inquire about how Hoosiers were getting through this, and to ask me -- as I have asked local officials -- was his level of government doing all it can to support us here and to cooperate with us? I told him, 'So far, so good.'" At the beginning of the month, Bush said he would veto these climate and clean energy bills if they came to his desk, declaring, "I urge the Congress to be very careful about running up enormous costs for future generations of Americans."
'TURNING THE KNOB': Although the deadly weather has been front-page news all season, and news channels dedicate hours of coverage to "Extreme Weather," the media are strangely reluctant to discuss severe weather events in the context of climate change. Perhaps some of the reason is the virulent response from the right wing whenever a journalist or scientist dares to discuss how "the upsurge in the number and power of the deadly storms could be related to a warming climate." In a rare instance of good coverage, ABC's Good Morning America ran a segment on Monday about the East Coast heat wave that noted "90 records have been tied or broken" across the East and interviewed eminent climatologist Dr. Stephen Schneider. Schneider explained, "While this heat wave like all other heat waves is made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making a little bit hotter." Schneider then pointed out that we are making the climate hotter through carbon dioxide and methane emissions. In response, the right-wing media outlet Newsbusters wrote that Schneider "Blames Greenhouse Gases for Current Heat Wave," saying, "[G]lobal warming activists have another way to frighten the public -- using steamy weather to suggest human greenhouse gas emissions are worsening a heat wave."
