Warming

August Climate Issue

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Our carbon-polluted climate is warming at unprecedented speed as we recklessly burn more carbon, supposedly for our convenience. But we foolishly ignore the many costs, including border security, air pollution, flooding, infrastructure, mental health, rising seas, and food security. August recognizes both National Wellness and Immunization Month, so let’s consider how climate change affects the spread of disease.

Higher temperatures cause droughts which force some animals to try to move into our communities to survive. Bats and rats are in more frequent contact with humans in part due to climate change, and some of them carry diseases like Covid. Also, the decline of certain species in the wild prompts illegal wildlife trafficking of the remaining rare animals, again increasing the odds of disease transmission from animals to humans.

Floods are increasing as snow melts earlier and rainfall concentrates more heavily in certain areas, despite more drought elsewhere. This can overwhelm storm drains or water treatment plants and contaminate water used for drinking, livestock or irrigation. Bacterial infections and gastrointestinal disorders have been increasing as we cook our climate with carbon.

As the atmosphere warms, tropical diseases and bugs are moving into higher latitudes and altitudes for longer periods. More mosquitoes and ticks in the US bring more diseases, especially in summer, to areas previously protected by colder seasons. This increases costs of illness, mitigation, and treatment.

Our current administration is removing any mention of the climate crisis from government websites, as if ignoring a problem can somehow solve it. But at the same time, we have outbreaks of diarrhea, rising cases of West Nile, Dengue Fever, Lyme Disease and Valley Fever, all exacerbated by the climate crisis, even as the Center for Disease Control is subject to massive budget cuts.

Disease prevention is often much less expensive than medical treatment. Tracking and treating a measles case can cost over 400 times as much as a vaccine would have cost, for example. So cutting the CDC budget is penny-wise and pound-foolish. Choosing costly carbon pollution that makes us ill, instead of choosing cleaner, cheaper alternatives, isn’t even penny-wise.

Frog Soup

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We celebrate both the ocean and the great outdoors in June. So, let’s talk about how our global temperature will continue rising uncontrollably for the foreseeable future.

The US burned more fossil fuels than any other country, polluting our atmosphere with excess carbon pollution and increasingly trapping more heat near the planet surface every year. The rate of warming is accelerating, and every decade is now over 1/2º F higher than the last, already over 10 times faster than natural warming after an ice age. And we have chosen to ignore it and keep burning more fossil fuels.

Our polar ice caps and ice age glaciers are melting. The Arctic Ocean will be free of ice at least one day in late summer within a few years—likely 2027 to 2030–, and without the reflective ice to keep the surface cool, the ocean surface temperature will soar. As our oceans warm and surface ice melts, the water expands, raising the sea level globally. Warmer waters kill coral reefs, disrupt ocean currents, cause toxic algae blooms, and create acidified, deoxygenated dead zones. This will cause many fisheries to collapse.

Still, from day to day we may not notice the change in climate. The earth still spins causing distinct weather patterns in the northern and southern hemispheres. The earth’s axis still tilts, and our planet still orbits the sun unevenly, causing the seasons. So our meteorologists still focus on the daily highs and lows, precipitation forecasts, and seasonal patterns, lulling us into familiar comfort.

But make no mistake. Like frogs in a pot, we are slowly cooking instead of jumping into action to save ourselves.