Record Temperatures Drive Home the Inescapable Reality of Climate Change - Horowitz

Record Temperatures Drive Home the Inescapable Reality of Climate Change - Horowitz

The three hottest days on record all occurred last week, punctuating intense heat waves battering parts of the United States, China, Mexico, and India, among other nations.  June was the world’s hottest month on record.

 

We began keeping sufficient track of temperatures around the world to calculate global temperatures in the mid-twentieth century.  Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, however, told CNN that based on the study of many thousands of years of climate-related data, last week’s temperatures were “almost certainly” the warmest ‘probably going back at least 100,000 years.”

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These record-setting average global temperatures are due to an accelerating warming trend that has all but silenced the once vocal segment of climate change deniers, topped off by an El Nino weather pattern, raising surface ocean temperatures.  As Robert Rohde put it in a Twitter post picked up by Reuters and other news outlets, "Such records are the predictable consequence of a short-term El Niño temperature boost coming on top of the long-term global warming trend due to mankind's greenhouse gas emissions."

 

Even before this recent heatwave, extreme weather has significantly contributed to driving home the inescapable reality of climate change to an overwhelming majority of Americans.  Nearly 7-in-10 Americans indicated that they experienced extreme weather in the past year, and large majorities of those Americans believe that climate change contributed to these events, according to a Pew Research Center Poll completed in early June.  More specifically, “69% of Americans say they’ve experienced at least one of five types of extreme weather in the past year: Long periods of unusually hot weather (45%), severe weather such as floods or intense storms (44%), droughts or water shortages (33%), major wildfires (18%) and rising sea levels that erode beaches and shorelines (16%),” Pew reported.

 

Further, among “those who experienced long periods of unusually hot weather,” 90% say climate change contributed, with 60% saying it contribute a lot. Similarly, “of those who have experienced coastal erosion, major wildfires, droughts and severe weather like floods or intense storms," 84% say climate change has contributed to these events, with 50% saying it contributed a lot.

 

Overall, most Americans now back key policies designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions and curb global temperatures, according to the Pew survey.  Nearly 3-in-4 Americans, for instance, “support the country’s participation in international efforts to reduce the effects of climate change”.  More than 2-in-3 believe” we should prioritize the development of alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen power over increasing the production of fossil fuel energy sources.”  More than 4-in-5 favor "planting 1 million trees around the world to absorb carbon emissions” and “requiring oil and gas companies to seal methane gas leaks from oil wells.”

While Republicans as a whole remain the segment of the electorate most resistant to action on climate change, younger and moderate Republicans are increasing departing from their older and more conservative brethren and becoming more supportive of taking major steps in this area, Pew noted.  And even among Republicans overall, “70% support more solar panel farms and 60% favor more wind farms.”

 

The American public’s increasing recognition of the need for action on climate change is buttressing the proactive approach of the Biden Administration, which has reversed President Trump’s irresponsible heat up the planet in any way possible policies. As I wrote previously, in 2022, the Biden administration won unprecedented incentives for the dramatic expansion of non-carbon-producing renewable energy, creating the potential for a quick and dramatic decline in the use of fossil fuels on the home front. 

 

As we move into a key period in international climate diplomacy that will culminate in a global climate conference to be held in December in Dubai, the Biden Administration’s actions at home give the United States renewed credibility and leverage to enlist stronger action and commitments by the world’s other top carbon emitters.   John Kerry, the administration’s special climate envoy, will travel to China later this month for critical bilateral climate talks. It was Kerry, when he served as President Obama’s secretary of state, who forged the bilateral agreements with China that paved the way for the landmark Paris global climate agreement.

The recent record-breaking global temperatures are another stark reminder that to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, we must speed the transition to non-carbon-producing renewable energy. The building blocks to do so are all in place; but it will take the political will to sustain the aggressive domestic policies and climate diplomacy that are now underway to achieve this essential goal.

 

If we want to leave a habitable planet for our children, there is nothing more important.