Pick up the international section of your newspaper today and read about how extreme weather is playing havoc with much of the world.
In Russia, the radically hot weather is killing people, on average 700 a day in the past week(wildfires are also playing a big part in the carnage).
In Pakistan, record floods have killed more than 1,600 people over the past week.
And in China, rescuers are looking for survivors from a massive mudslide that occurred on Sunday, with the death toll now at 700, with another 1,148 missing. Flooding around the country over the past month has killed another 1,454 and left more than 600 missing, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs in the worst flooding in a decade.
Is this all a coincidence? Oh, and let's not forget the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported yesterday that July was one of the hottest months ever along the Eastern Seaboard, with each state from Maine to Florida enduring one of its 10 warmest Julys since record-keeping began in 1880s. They also reported that the period from January to July was the Northeast's warmest on record.
Now, before I write about how all of this news is a reminder that the need to combat climate change around the world is stronger than ever, I will not succumb to what critics of global warming did this winter, in one of the coldest winters in recent vintage on the east coast (and especially in Florida). That is, I won't confuse "weather", with "climate." I learned from respected Ohio State geologist Lonnie Thompson earlier this year.
No, climate is weather over an extended period of time. And folks, the record isn't very encouraging. The world is getting hotter. Meanwhile, what are we doing about it? As the PBS News Hour featured last night in a story about the U.S. Senate's recent failure to pass a bill to match the House's 2009 cap-and-trade legislation, very little.
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2010.