No
Denying Climate Chaos
I
live in Southern California, and a few weeks
ago, we started hearing news about a rare
hurricane, Hilary, heading our way. Concerned
about potential flooding from the back patio
into the basement stairwell and windows, my
brother-in-law and I dutifully took a Saturday
morning to find sand bags. We waded through
agitated crowds at Home Depot, bought our full
ration of empty sacks, then proceeded to a
county facility to join another crowd of
sand-scoopers. People were sweating, grumbling,
passing around shovels, offering help, and
generally being good neighbors. We ended up
hauling and placing 45 sand bags. The storm did
come, but the rains weren’t as bad as we
expected. The basement stayed dry. I wonder how
may personnel hours were spent prepping for the
storm, not to mention on the mobilization of
other resources, despite the
outcome.
The weather has turned
baking hot here again, and this week the nation
turned its eye to the next hurricane, Idalia,
which blasted Florida, Georgia, and other
portions of the Southeast. As part of its
coverage, the Wall Street Journal
warned that a $100-billion storm, or worse,
can’t be far off. This comes as intensifying
hurricanes are contributing to massive insurance
increases. Florida homeowners have seen their
premiums triple in the past five years. A number
of people are just plain foregoing homeowner’s
insurance these days. “Some effects of the
increased insurance premiums are already being
felt in the real-estate market, with coastal and
flood-prone areas seeing slower sales and
canceled deals,” the paper reported. (Meanwhile,
insurance companies are similarly abandoning
homeowners in the West, where wildfires are
intensifying.)
All of this is to
say that climate change is here, and it is
having an impact. And it’s not just the climate
scientists who know it. I know, you know it, our
neighbors know it, and even Wall Street knows
it. How much longer can cynical politicians
discredit, ignore, or deny it? As long as we let
them, I suppose.
The end of this
hurricane season will mean a ramp-up toward
election season and the 2024 polls. Now is the
time for people who want to see climate
accountability to step up. It’s time to
organize, canvas, and get ready to vote. Because
another storm is always coming, and eventually
our luck, if you can call it that, is going to
run out.
Brian
Calvert
Associate Editor,
Earth Island
Journal Photo by Carl
Jones
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