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Earth Science

Climate Change Is Making Big Problems Bigger (nytimes.com) 120

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
New data compiled by the E.P.A. shows how global warming is making life harder for Americans in myriad ways that threaten their health, safety and homes. From a report: Wildfires are bigger, and starting earlier in the year. Heat waves are more frequent. Seas are warmer, and flooding is more common. The air is getting hotter. Even ragweed pollen season is beginning sooner. Climate change is already happening around the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday. And in many cases, that change is speeding up. The freshly compiled data, the federal government's most comprehensive and up-to-date information yet, shows that a warming world is making life harder for Americans, in ways that threaten their health and safety, homes and communities. And it comes as the Biden administration is trying to propel aggressive action at home and abroad to cut the pollution that is raising global temperatures. "There is no small town, big city or rural community that is unaffected by the climate crisis," Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator, said on Wednesday. "Americans are seeing and feeling the impacts up close, with increasing regularity."

The data released Wednesday came after a four-year gap. Until 2016, the E.P.A. regularly updated its climate indicators. But under President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly questioned whether the planet was warming, the data was frozen in time. It was available on the agency's website but was not kept current. The Biden administration revived the effort this year and added some new measures, pulling information from government agencies, universities and other sources. The E.P.A. used 54 separate indicators which, taken together, paint a grim picture.
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Climate Change Is Making Big Problems Bigger More

Climate Change Is Making Big Problems Bigger

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  • "Wildfires are bigger, and starting earlier in the year. Heat waves are more frequent. Seas are warmer, and flooding is more common. The air is getting hotter. Even ragweed pollen season is beginning sooner. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      For some it is. One of the most extreme example of climate change denial are those who promote forest homes, then are amazed that the houses burn done and the family dies due to the extremely rapid and hot fires. We know that each degree of temperate rise leads to fires that are many time more fierce. That a home that would have been safe a decade ago is now a death trap. We saw proof in the camp fire in California. Things are not going to get better.

      • Fires are also more of a problem because we're spreading out more through traditionally-forested areas. That fire that 50 years ago might have burned down 50 homes through a rural area could today burn down 1000 homes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      We should thank the oceans for soaking up most of the excess heat energy caused by global warming because without that heat sink we'd literally all cook to death.

      "the oceans play a huge role in how heat is absorbed into the Earthâ(TM)s energy budget. The amount of heat that the oceans can store is extremely large when compared to the land or atmospheric capacity. Oceans can act as a heat sink that can absorb excess heat for periods of time before releasing that heat back into the atmosphere causing w

  • The pandemic response doesn't give me much hope for tackling climate-change. Every country acted as-if the pandemic ended at their borders.

  • And that's where he went completely off the rails:

    "There is no small town, big city or rural community that is unaffected by the CLIMATE CRISIS," Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator,
    [emphasis mine]

    If they call it a "crisis" they can take all kinds of measures to combat it. Just look at what they were able to do to combat the "covid crisis".

    • Considering the impact, crisis is sufficient.

      • Considering the impact, crisis is sufficient.

        Well ok then, since you consider it a crisis you should be OK with taking extreme measures to deal with it.
        Start by turning off your utilities.

      • If this is a crisis, then overblown, controlling government is a catastrophe.

        .
        I heartily encourage a full-blown economic impact analysis. But no picking and choosing! You must credit industries and fossile fuels for the astounding improvements to daily life. Powerful economies invent solutions to problems faster than they become serious in the long run. And medium run.

        Indeed, its so powerfuk shortage scares of the 1970s had to be abandoned as rationale for government control and rationing. It's no coi

    • I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis act like it's a crisis.

      • Re:"the climate crisis"? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bluegutang ( 2814641 ) on Thursday May 13, 2021 @01:06PM (#61381088)

        Yep. As long as environmentalists are cheering the replacement of nuclear with fossil fuels [publicnewsservice.org], it's pretty clear they don't think climate change is a major threat.

        • Perhaps you want to read the articles you link? So you do not look like a dumb idiot?

          But Moran pointed out renewable energy sources are coming online at a rapid pace, including offshore wind farms capable of generating 4,300 megawatts of power, twice the capacity of Indian Point. They're scheduled to go into operation in 2024.

          • So until 2024 the nuclear power will indeed be replaced by fossil fuels? And even after 2024 the wind farms won't fully replace the nuclear, because wind has a 35% capacity factor while nuclear has a 90% capacity factor [wikipedia.org] so nearly 3 times as much wind is needed to replace an equivalent amount of nuclear? And to whatever extent the wind replaces nuclear, it WOULD have replaced fossil fuels if the nuclear remained open?

            • And what has "capacity factor" to do with it?

              And how can you magically know the capacity factor of a wind plant that is not even build yet?

              Idiot very much?

              And to whatever extent the wind replaces nuclear, it WOULD have replaced fossil fuels if the nuclear remained open?
              Yes it had. But you likely do not live at the plant. So shut up and let the locals decide.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          Where in the article does it say environmentalists are cheering the use of fossil fuels? Did you make that up?

          • They are cheering (just read the title) a policy whose inevitable result is greater use of fossil fuels (and no measurable benefits for humans or the environment which would compensate for that).

      • I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis act like it's a crisis.

        Well here you go [insideclimatenews.org]. It doesn't establish anything as truth, but it fits your requirement.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Subm ( 79417 )

      You do understand that we're feeling the effects of emissions from decades ago?

      What we do today will have effects decades from now and will take centuries to revert.

      • You do understand that we're feeling the effects of emissions from decades ago?

        What we do today will have effects decades from now and will take centuries to revert.

        So, it's a concern with effects that can be felt over time. Not a crisis.
        And you can't possibly predict the concerns of our descendants centuries into the future any better than our ancestors could have centuries into the past.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Halo1 ( 136547 )

          You do understand that we're feeling the effects of emissions from decades ago?

          What we do today will have effects decades from now and will take centuries to revert.

          So, it's a concern with effects that can be felt over time. Not a crisis.
          And you can't possibly predict the concerns of our descendants centuries into the future any better than our ancestors could have centuries into the past.

          It's decades, not centuries. And both the causes and effects of climate change were fairly accurately predicted decades ago. Shell even made a whole movie [thecorrespondent.com] about it. The crisis is that we urgently need to do a lot of things about it right now.

          • You do understand that we're feeling the effects of emissions from decades ago?

            What we do today will have effects decades from now and will take centuries to revert.

            So, it's a concern with effects that can be felt over time. Not a crisis.
            And you can't possibly predict the concerns of our descendants centuries into the future any better than our ancestors could have centuries into the past.

            It's decades, not centuries. And both the causes and effects of climate change were fairly accurately predicted decades ago. Shell even made a whole movie [thecorrespondent.com] about it. The crisis is that we urgently need to do a lot of things about it right now.

            You wrote: What we do today will have effects decades from now and will take centuries to revert.
            And the truth is, you can't know what things will be like "decades from now" and especially not "centuries from now."

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Halo1 ( 136547 )

              I didn't write that, someone else did.

              And if you want to revert to that kind of sophistry, the truth is that you can't know anything for sure. You might even be hallucinating this entire conversation and in practice be arguing against yourself.

              That's why we have the scientific method, which never says that anything is 100% certain, but through observation, analysis, experiments, different approaches by different people, correlation, attempts to devise cause-effect relations, etc, ends up giving us pretty go

    • "There is no small town, big city or rural community that is unaffected by the CLIMATE CRISIS," Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator

      This is not true, you can look at climatlogical models and there are some areas of the world that will not see much if any warming or change. And you can see some areas with cooling.

  • You have to consider the whole picture, which is not what this article does. Also, it calls these big problems, but what is the metric they are using to justify that claim? None of those things would typically be listed as major problems affecting most people. This is really just fear mongering and hyperbole.

  • "The air is getting hotter". Certainly in rooms where EPA bureaucrats are talking. That $9 billion budget must be protected - and nothing helps justify taxes like fear.

    Global temperatures and CO2 levels have been considerably higher than they are today for most of the period when there has been life on Earth. The very existence of icecaps is unusual in the long term. And right now it seems to be getting colder - gradually, of course, but definitely.

    "Record Cold in North Carolina Piedmont"
    "Colorado Springs s

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Wimmie ( 446910 )

      Wanna take a bet ?
      How many cold records were broken, how many hot records were broken in the same period ?
      There is a difference between weather and climate!

  • Present day Americans don't have hard lives. What a joke.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Present day Americans don't have hard lives. What a joke.

      The hell we don't!

      Have you tried to buy ammo lately?

  • Until China stops building more coal plants ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Thursday May 13, 2021 @01:11PM (#61381108)
    China is producing more CO2 than all other developed countries combined. They seriously don't give a damn if they fuck up the entire planet, as long as they get cheap electricity to make their cheap products. How about the West stop talking out of both sides of their mouths and start building clean "super factories" that can be used by industry rivals, like Foxconn, Pegatron, Compal and other Chinese firms make almost all of the worlds conventional computers and smartphones. China isn't playing the same game, they just say they are.
    • Reminds us again when the United States will be carbon neutral? 2050 https://www.weforum.org/agenda... [weforum.org]

      China said 2060 but China’s top climate experts say they can reach it by, wait for it, 2050. https://www.vox.com/2020/10/15... [vox.com]

      So the problem is what again?

      Do you mean multinational corporations manufacturing stuff in China causing the all those carbon emissions. Maybe you should be complaining about the multinational corporations.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I'm shocked! Until I remember China has a larger population than all other developed countries combined and they also happen to be the ones doing the manufacturing for all those developed countries.

        Ah well that makes it ok then. The Climate will take this into account and adjust its temperature accordingly...

  • aka "The sky is falling." No really, this time we're not full of shit. Peak Oil. Overpopulation. Food crisis. Nuclear Armageddon. Nuclear power will kill us all. ...ok we might have been wrong about all of those those but WE'RE TOTALLY RIGHT THIS TIME.

    • Predicting the future with generalisims is probably not a good idea, people should stop doing it, but its a good way to get control and get your message heard.

  • ... Biden administration is trying to propel aggressive action at home and abroad to cut the pollution that is raising global temperatures ...

    If there are no (admittedly distasteful) plans for population reduction (fines, etc.), then I don't want to hear about anyone's "plans"--covering the planet with solar panels and windmills won't be enough if the population continues to increase, and additionally, life will be less enjoyable as time goes on. (Yes, I know about the concept that upcoming populations have less kids going forward; apparently that's not enough as we approach 8 billion.)

    Don't mod the messenger.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yeah, our unsustainable human overpopulation is both the biggest and root cause of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change: https://interactive.guim.co.uk... [guim.co.uk] https://iopscience.iop.org/art... [iop.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        Interesting graphic, thank you!

        On a side note, I've wondered about the assumptions made regarding the energy-savings of moving away from the simplistic incandescent light bulbs. I could probably make a light bulb on my kitchen table within several hours using a drinking glass, wire and vacuum pump.

        But I've also designed, made and mass-produced electronic circuits/products, and am well aware of the incredible amount of effort and energy of the uncounted thousands of humans, sourcing thousands of p

  • its all grey clouds and doom is political fear mongering. I feel it would be better to say that climate change needs to be dealt with, find the differences and prepare for them.

  • People that actually wanted to listen to Science have known pretty much this for 30 years or so. The difference is that 30 years ago, most of it could have been avoided. That opportunity is now gone.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Sure. Same as the researchers that keep predicting there will be pretty bad pandemics have no track record of being correct. Oh, wait.

        Sane people pay a bit more attention when there are predictions of an existential threat not coming from religious nutballs or commercial interests. Insane people act as the politicians back then did.

  • And, the biggest problem is the vast expense that is going into a futile mission to reverse climate change.

  • 1. With just $100,000 we can develop dangerous Viruses in lab;
    2. Due to climate change, dormant Viruses under seabed will become Active;

  • People are living longer, so climate change must be a benefit.

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