It is About to Get Hotter

I have written a couple of times about the possible silver lining of Trump’s War with Iran. I wrote this and a bit later, this column. I have also written about how stupid/wrong side of history the Trump Administration is on the climate crisis. If you are going to start a war that will cut off the global oil supplies and increase dramatically the price of oil, would you not rapidly develop wind and solar power? Wind and solar have no geopolitical baggage. It is ‘free’, clean and never ending.

The current heat wave blanketing the eastern half of the U.S. is a consequence of global warming, which is the cause of the climate crisis. The feared super El Níño is going to make 2026 and 2027 two of the hottest years on record. All the extreme weather the world is facing – higher levels of tornados, thunderstorms, floods, fires and droughts – was predicted 20, 30, even 40 years ago as a consequence of climate change. It has come to pass.

It has come to pass while humanity has been distracted by Trump, other autocrats, wars, sports and politics. The U.S. is not now preparing for the inevitable increase in damaging weather consequences in the slightest. The President of the United States still states that “climate change is a Chinese hoax”. Then, at the same time he starts a war with a middling power nation, that cuts off 20% of the global supply of oil and raises the price. Dumb, stupid, incompetent, whatever the “policy” is for the Trump Administration on the climate crisis, it serves no one except those that can make money in the oil markets.

Sorry to go on about the stupidity of the Trump Administration relative to the climate crisis. As an American who has long thought about climate, I am frustrated, embarrassed and, to use a current phrase gob smacked by my country’s total stupidity on energy policy.

And it is about to get much hotter. The current heat wave in America, and the one last week in Europe, are about to become a regular occurrence for both continents.

In this BBC reportinghttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62rrj66p3eo?mc_cid=01b039f1c4&mc_eid=18dc6c745c the following statement was made:

“When we have a heatwave it’s happening more severely, because it’s on top of a warming climate,” Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the Met Office and a professor at the University of Exeter, told BBC News.

“I’ve been a climate scientist for 33 years and we’re seeing exactly the kinds of things that we were warning back then... [although] these records are perhaps more extreme and coming sooner than we had expected,” he added.

And the heat isn’t limited to Europe, with temperatures reaching 45C in Delhi in India.”

The point is that heat records are not just being broken, they are being smashed. This is due to the reality that climate scientists decades ago forecast that the climate crisis would bein a linear progression and in fact it has been occurring arithmetically, if not geometrically, so it is hotter than ever.

It is about to get much hotter.

The reason is that a Super El Níño is developing in the Pacific Ocean. When a regular El Níño develops there is an increase in global temperatures and droughts. With this developing Super El Niño it will be much hotter. Expect to see summer heat waves in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer months and expect to see summer heat waves in the Southern Hemisphere in the late Fall. There will be both droughts and floods due to this rapidly developing phenomenon.

As I wrote in the linked columns at the top of this column, there is a developing silver lining in Trump’s War with Iran in that countries around the world have increased sales of EVs and have been installing solar panels at increasing rates since the war began. The good news is that the world is taking notice of why the global economy needs to be off fossil fuels.

But America is not leading the way, and that pains me.

[Happy July 4th weekend! Again, thank you to all who took advantage of the 40% off sale for paid subscriptions las month. You can now access the entire archives of Evolutionshift and also comment on any column. If you like this column, please hit the like button below. Thank you! Enjoy this weekend holiday…. but stay cool!]