The Gorilla in the Room: Climate Change, Good or Bad?

During the worst disasters some people actually benefit. For example, the owners of a hardware store that is undamaged by a hurricane, the makers of weapons during war, sandbag manufacturers, etc. But, and this is a giant “but,” for every one that benefits, thousands do not. Besides, how do we weigh the death of a loved one against mere profit?

Most everything that we do outdoors--building construction, flood mitigation, farming, recreation, aviation (warmer temperatures make it harder for aircraft to take off)--has been developed around weather that may be changeable, but it is weather we can count on. Now we’ve changed the weather. I know that an ocean that is a few inches higher doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. A few inches are awfully small compared to the depth of an ocean. But, try telling that to a homeowner when that inch of water ends up in her basement during strong onshore winds and high tides. “This never happened before” will become an all-too-familiar phrase. 

 The construction of levies, the building of cities, the planting of crops are all based on the past weather record (it would be nice to have the future record also, but alas, that is in the future). The taming of the mighty Mississippi by the Corps of Engineers was thought to be a done deal. Well, it sure “done a deal” to the people living along the Mississippi. How many people in the coming weeks, as levies have to be broken and floodgates opened, will stand with hands on their hips and say “this never happened before”?

Hunter-gatherers only have to feed a few people (family members mostly) to survive, however they won’t have big screen TVs that way. Our lives depend on a few farmers feeding vast numbers of people and those farmers depend on a contract with nature that appears to be broken.

We will survive in the United States as we are resourceful and wealthy and we can adjust to a changing climate, but it will be costly to adjust and most of us will not like it. Poorer countries will suffer more. 

Next blog I’ll write about what we can do to help. But, I’ll have to make a slight diversion to set the stage for it.