Tag: wildfires

My Shocking American Climate Change Road Trip is a Call for Action Now

Anyone who doesn’t believe climate change, global warming, and sea level rise are real needs to see the shocking sights I saw during a summer road trip across America.

From early July through early August, I tent camped my way up the Appalachian Mountains, across the mid-part of the country, and all over the West, including Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming. In ten short weeks, I saw:

*A Lake Powell, Utah, boat ramp high and dry due to the mega-drought;

*Houses in Pacifica, California, dangerously close to toppling into the Pacific Ocean because of sea level rise-driven erosion;

*Bone dry Lassen Volcanic National Park, California, before a wildfire burned through half its forests;

*Mount Shasta, California, nearly snowless with smoky fires burning on its stark gray flanks;

*The drought-stricken Lake Shasta reservoir so low the exposed orange and yellow banks were blinding;

*An enormous mushroom cloud billowing over the Bootleg Fire — Oregon’s third worst wildfire ever;

*Mount Rainier, Washington, snow-starved, its glaciers melting due to an unusual early summer heatwave;

*An elementary school being built inland in La Push, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula because sea level rise and stronger Pacific storms threatened the historic coastal village; and

*Endless, hazy wildfire smoke filled skies.

Scientists have accumulated an enormous body of research that says the heatwaves, mega-drought, stronger, more damaging storms and wildfires, sea level rise, receding glaciers, and depleted reservoirs we’re seeing today are all related to climate change and global warming, which is going to get progressively worse in the decades to come. What I saw with my own eyes says they’re right.

The real question now isn’t the science and it isn’t whether or not climate change is harming the world around us today. The science is sound and climate change/global warming is hitting us on many fronts today. The real question now is do we have the will to act to save the planet for our generation, future generations, and the wildlife that deserves a functioning Earth as much as we do.

In this video, I take you with me on my shocking American climate change road trip and propose five steps we can all take today to fight this global threat:

  1. Only elect candidates who believe we need to combat climate change now.
  2. Money talks. Buy from companies that not only talk about the need to fight climate change but are taking action now.
  3. Buy the most energy efficient vehicles we can afford.
  4. Buy the most energy efficient homes and businesses we can afford or take steps, and practice energy conservation by switching off TVs, computers, lights and other electronics when we’re not using them.
  5. Eat a mostly plant-based diet to help reduce the amount of energy needed to produce food.

Watching the planet go up in flames isn’t an option. We all need to act NOW.

The Siberian Town that Broke 100 Degrees & You

On Saturday, June 20, the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk located above the Arctic Circle hit a scorching, all-time record high of 100.4 degrees. What’s that have to do with those of us who live thousands of miles away in the U.S.? As residents of the same planet, a lot.

First, the record is a sure sign that the simple science behind climate change, read global warming, is on the mark. It goes like this: We burn fossil fuels (think oil, gasoline, coal), greenhouse gases — most notably carbon dioxide — accumulate in the atmosphere, the greenhouse gases trap radiation from the sun in the atmosphere, and the atmosphere, ocean and land heat up.

Second, the heating of northern climes isn’t just a matter of extreme summer weather. Under the spell of the sun that never sets this time of year up there, the land surface heats up and permafrost begins to melt. As it melts, methane, a more potent but not as long-lasting greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere, leading to even more warming. The feedback cycle generates more and more melt and more and more methane release.

We’re not done with second point yet. The heating of the northern climes also leads to the normally damp land drying out, which results in forest fires. The fires pose at least two threats: They release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — accelerating global warming — and the soot can settle on snow and ice fields. There, the dark soot absorbs solar radiation which result in faster melting. The water pours into the ocean contributing to sea level rise. Scientists witnessed this dynamic when wildfires in Canada coated Greenland’s ice sheet in soot and melting occurred at a faster rate.

Third, the global warming-driven record high temperatures in Siberia, Alaska, Greenland and other high latitude locations can alter weather patterns. Specifically, they can cause a buildup of high pressure areas that stall the jet stream, which normally keeps weather systems moving from west to east. When they stall, they, too, can heat up. This is contributing to the seemingly never-ending series of monthly high temperature records being set around the globe.

So, what’s all this have to do with you (us)? Record heat above the Arctic Circle is clearly a warning sign that the climate is changing more rapidly than many scientists anticipated. We have pumped more carbon into the atmosphere than has been recorded in millions of years. As a result, there is the very real risk that high temperatures now considered unusual will soon become the norm while extreme high temperatures become, well, more extreme. This cycle could accelerate to the point where, quite frankly, parts of the planet could become inhospitable to human life.

The reality of rapid global warming already poses a threat to millions of people who live in coastal areas. Many of us reside in cities and towns that are already experiencing sea level rise flooding or will likely experience it in the coming years. If the planet warms faster than expected, it’s likely that the rapid melt Greenland experienced due to extremely high temperatures last summer will become the norm. The warming could also cause the Arctic ice sheet, the other major contributor to higher seas, to become further destabilized as floating ice sheets that hold back inland glaciers break off the continent. If enough sea ice vanishes, inland glaciers could become uncorked and rush from land into the sea. The combination of melt in Greenland and a river of Arctic glaciers spilling into the ocean could lead to seas rising much faster than predicted when many locations are already struggling with the foot or so of sea level rise that’s been recorded in the last hundred or so years.

The bottom line for you (us) is global warming is fact. The heating we’re now witnessing and its consequences was anticipated decades ago by the majority of climate scientists. The only real X-factors are how much fossil fuels we’ll burn in the years to come and exactly how fast they’ll warm the atmosphere, ocean and land.

So where does this leave you (us)? Science says the only way to stop the dangerous global warming feedback loop is for humans to burn less fossil fuels. It’s that simple. To achieve this objective, we need to elect leaders who are dedicated to the cause and give our business to companies that help us to trade fossil fuels for environmentally-friendly energy sources.

If we fail to cut back on releasing carbon into the atmosphere, the tiny town in Siberia will prove to be the canary in the coal mine none of the miners listened to.

Australian Executives Recognize Climate Change Threat

After months of witnessing their country battling fierce wildfires, a majority of Australian business executives who participated in a Deloitte survey worry that climate change poses a threat to their companies. Eighty-one percent of the business leaders told Deloitte that they were concerned climate change could harm their businesses.

The Australian executives’ level of concern is much higher than the global average. Forty-eight percent of business leaders in 18 other countries surveyed said they were worried about climate change.

Robert Hillard, a Deloitte Australia executive, said, “Businesses need to demonstrate to investors that they are taking appropriate steps to mitigate their exposure.”

Top Australian government officials, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, have sparked public anger by denying climate change is a problem. Morrison says the Australian economy will be damaged if it seeks to further reduce carbon emissions. Coal, a major greenhouse gas contributor, is the country’s number two export.

The business world was rocked last week when Larry Fink, the founder of BlackRock, Inc., the world’s largest investment management corporation with nearly $7 trillion in assets under management, sent a letter to chief executives that said his firm would consider a company’s climate change record when deciding where to invest. Fink said companies needed to consider the impact of climate change and sea level rise and act accordingly to protect their bottom lines.

Buyers, sellers, owners, and real estate agents — who are essentially acting as chief executives managing their own financial futures — need to follow the business leaders’ example and consider climate change and sea level rise when they’re deciding how to proceed in a real estate transaction.

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