For decades, I have been predicting the types of weather type repercussions that were going to happen that we are now seeing such as drought, fires, floods, hurricanes, excessive rain events, etc. These are happening so frequently every day that it is mind numbing. I’ve also tried to alert you to how all this is going to effect us in ways other than directly from these weather events such as insurance availability and costs, real estate values, health consequences and costs, air travel and the uptake of electric vehicles amongst other items.
Today I want to highlight a couple of other consequences that remind us that there are going to be more and more impacts that we may not be considering. Some of these may simply impact how people live day to day. Others of these are signaling the horrible consequences that are tearing apart the fragile fabric and balance of the natural world upon which we have come to take for granted and upon which we depend and have built our civilization.
This first article is a case in point… And while this loss of species is due to our poisoning them, the loss of species due to climate change carries its own set of consequences.
From Anthropocene
How Does the Loss of Vultures Lead to 500,000+ People Dying?
Loss of vultures due to accidental poisoning resulted in more than 100,000 human deaths per year in India.
August 14, 2024
scavengers are also life savers, protecting millions of people from an early demise. The birds’ recent disappearance in India due to accidental poisoning has revealed their critical role in controlling disease, and the human toll that can come when a species is pushed to the brink of extinction.
“The vulture collapse in India provides a particularly stark example of the type of hard-to-reverse and unpredictable costs to humans that can come from the loss of a species,” said environmental economist Anant Sudarshan of the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.
While there is widespread concern about the growing number of species threatened by extinction, it’s often difficult to calculate the loss in terms of human lives or dollars
This next article is related to how much hotter weather is impacting how we live.
From The New York Times
How Extreme Heat Is Threatening Education Progress Worldwide
Children today face many more extreme weather hazards that can undermine global gains in education.
Aug. 14, 2024
The continued burning of fossil fuels is closing schools around the world for days, sometimes weeks at a time, and threatening to undermine one of the greatest global gains of recent decades: children’s education.
It’s a glimpse into one of the starkest divides of climate change. Children today are living through many more abnormally hot days in their lifetimes than their grandparents,
Pakistan closed schools for half its students, that’s 26 million children, for a full week in May, when temperatures were projected to soar to more than 40 degrees Celsius. Bangladesh shuttered schools for half its students during an April heat wave, affecting 33 million children. So too South Sudan in April. The Philippines ordered school closures for two days, when heat reached what the country’s meteorological department called “danger” levels.
And in the United States, heat days prompted school closures or early dismissal in districts from Massachusetts to Colorado during the last school year. They still represent a small share of total school days, though one recent estimate suggests that the numbers are increasing quickly, from about three days a year a few years ago to double that number now, with many more expected by midcentury.
While this topic of the spread of disease due to hotter temperatures is not a new one for me to cover, I am including it as a reminder.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/06/30/dengue-puerto-rico-mosquito-climate-change
From The Washinton Post
Dengue Fever is Surging Worldwide. A Hotter Planet Will Make it Worse
Climate change helped fuel an explosion of dengue cases in the Americas, including Puerto Rico, as mosquitoes multiply in warmer, wetter weather
June 30, 2024
Soaring global temperatures have accelerated the life cycles and expanded the ranges of the mosquitoes that carry dengue, helping spread the virus to roughly 1 in every 800 people on the planet in the past six months alone.
From E&E News
Heat Waves Spark Soaring Electric Bills, Forcing People to Shut Off AC
A report by state energy officials warns that poorer households face climate-related dangers amid climbing utility costs
06/04/2024
In response to my last blog a few days ago, one of my readers sent me the link to this TED Talk. (Thanks Ken) It’s about 18 minutes long and is a great reminder of how perilously close we are to a tipping point beyond which, well, let’s just say we’re cooked or shall we say, fried. It recaps much of that of which I have been warning for decades all coming true. It’s quite sobering and is therefore worth listening to as a reminder of how dire is our situation. One thing I don’t like about many of these presentations is that the consequences that are described assume that we will stay on our current trajectory. We pretty much know that this will not be the case. The real question is how quickly we will bend the curve to a new tomorrow and how bad the circumstances will get based on this. One thing I try to provide is some encouragement that we can avoid the worst impacts. I try to describe some of the ways we can do that. As the presenter references near the end, we have the means to implement change and the speed in which we do this. And the “means” are continuing to develop and become more viable. The question is whether we have the will? And once again, it depends on elections. The coming election presents a clear choice and if Trump is elected, the timeline will be vastly retarded.
To close let me post a few articles that reflect topics that are referred to in the TED Talk.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/climate/wind-power-coal.html?mc_cid=d012289fac
From The New York Times
Wind Beat Coal Two Months in a Row for U.S. Electricity Generation
The shift occurred as the cost of wind power and other renewable energy is rapidly declining and coal is being pushed out by natural gas.
Aug. 15, 2024
US wind and solar on track to overtake coal this year
The two renewable resources together have produced more power than coal through July — a first for the United States.
08/13/2024
From E&E News
Severe Drought Returns to Amazon, Happening Earlier than Expected
Last year’s drought killed dozens of river dolphins, choked cities with smoke for months and isolated thousands of people who depend on water transportation
08/05/2024
