thomas leverett weblog

Extreme climate disruption

Climate is all over the news today. It's 117 in Phoenix; it's over a hundred in a wide swath of the country; Canadian wildfires are raging; Vermont is expecting more flooding. And that's just the US. I sense that things are bad in places like India, Europe, and China as well.

I think the climate disruption is the least we can expect given that we have been disrupting the natural systems now for years with impunity. On the question of whether we should stop burning oil and start switching over to electric, of course we should. Humans have to work together fast in order to slow down this climate disaster, and ultimately get a handle on it.

That's why I think Trump is the worst possible nightmare for this earth; his term was a disaster for many reasons, including his general corruption, his megalomania, etc., but most definitely the worst thing about it was that he trashed the Paris accords, the EPA, and even the suggestion that something could be done about it. He did more damage in his four years than we could possibly make up for in the next twenty, and he wasn't even sorry. He has at times stated his intention to bring back dirty coal.

It seems to me that in such a climate a guy like that would be ludicrously inappropriate. In fact that's what I'd characterize him as, and, as an environmental voter (still wishing Gore had fought a little harder to reclaim the election that was stolen from him), I tend to see everything based on the damage it might do to the earth. We only have one earth. We are perilously close to losing it. We need to work together as a human race to save it. A guy who thinks only of himself and the privilege of the few (the right, for example, to drill as much as one pleases), is very destructive at just the wrong time.

The only question is whether the world will see it this way too. It seems very clear to me, unlike the haze which, as I write, is descending again upon the midwest.

posted by tom @ 11:52 AM