Now, DT is doing everything to wipe climate heating from our minds. For example, he’s scrubbed any references to climate change from the websites of the Department of State, Defense, Agriculture, Transportation, Energy, Environmental Protection, and of course the White House. He chose Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA, who has since then been working to de-fang and unstaff the agency, and degrade environmental protections.
I’m not a scientist. I haven’t been involved lately in large scale efforts to safeguard our climate and environment. But I take smaller actions. And I know it’s been extremely hot. I know it’s not just the temperature, but heat wrapped in humidity making our weather so uncomfortable and too often deadly. In Europe, so many heat records are being shattered. In France for example, a top-level Red Alert was issued for most of the country, with one town recording a reading of 110.84 Fahrenheit. Since June 21,1300 deaths across Europe have been attributed to heat stress, which has been called ‘the silent killer.’
According to John Kennedy, head of climate information at the World Meteorological Organization, since 1976 Europe has warmed at an alarming rate of 2 degrees, twice as fast as any other continent. Kennedy added that with climate changing as quickly as this, extreme heat and other destructive weather events are expected at increasing frequency.
I think most of us know we humans are destroying the ability of our planet to feed, house, and sustain us. And we know such events are happening in the US, too. For the July 4th weekend, much of the central and eastern US will experience temperatures from 90-100 degrees, with it “feeling like” 110. In my rural town in the Finger Lakes of NY, this week we’re getting 4 – 5 very humid days in a row of mid 90s to100 degrees, with a heat index close to 110 degrees. This is our second heatwave this year, and summer has just begun. I’m really wishing the air-conditioning in my car hadn’t broken.
And we’re all in this together. Outside, I feel not only the heat and humidity, but another layer on top of that, of fear and grief, of anger over the willful ignorance and greed perpetrated by our culture, and our present leaders. The dismantling of the EPA and environmental protections as mentioned earlier not only increases the risk of extreme weather but endangers our health in many ways, for example by increasing cancer-causing pollution. Yet, as reported by The Hill, DT has delivered hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies in exchange for their political support.
And doing little to stop environmental destruction is also a financial nightmare. The International Chamber of Commerce reports that globally, over the last ten years, extreme weather has cost us over $2 trillion. And it’s getting worse; over the last 2 years alone it’s cost $451 billion, a 19% increase over the previous 8 years. NOAA estimates that between 1980 and 2024 the US sustained 403 extreme weather events where overall damage costs exceeded $1 billion. Lately, wildfires and harsh storms have pushed insurance costs significantly higher. And this does not include the deaths, emotional pain, and disruption of lives.
It’s so difficult to wear any of these layers. It freaks me out; it freaks out so many of us. It’s difficult to talk about or even think about. But the only way to slow down the excessive heat is to speed up the willingness to acknowledge the last layer; to say as often as possible in whatever ways we can, that misinformation fueled by greed is undermining all our lives. And then act.
There are so many actions we can take, in our homes and personal lives, as a consumer, also as an advocate and a voter. Many of them are already (hopefully) in the public mind, and seemingly small but do-able. Multiplied by millions they have an important impact. Helping to get out the vote for Democrats and those committed to protecting our environment is a crucial first step. The U. N. provides detailed actions we can take like, when possible, use more sustainable energy sources, reduce the use of cars, the purchase of products wrapped in layers of plastic, or the eating of meat. We can be conscious of water use and who we support with what and where we shop. So many possibilities.
I was reading how people in different cities were taking the reality of human caused climate change into their plans to turn their environments into more positive living spaces. After dangerous heatwaves in the 1990s, the city of Seoul, Korea planted 16 million trees and greatly expanded its acreage of green space. Trees use photosynthesis to soak up rays of the sun and literally eat the stuff that traps heat in our atmosphere. People can build community, roof top, and window gardens. Cities can change building codes to take heat resilience into account, promote energy efficiency and awareness of how the structures themselves affect their neighbors and overall city climate.
The Nature Conservancy talks about how to re-partner with nature to protect nature. For example, restoring the forests and wetlands we have lost. In the state of Pennsylvania there’s the Keystone 10 Million Tree Partnership, which as of now has planted 8,700,000 trees. Taking such actions serves a double or triple purpose; they not only diminish global warming, they create community. They increase hope and emotional well-being. They make our lives more meaningful.
In the past, for too many of us climate change was more a frightening concept than a felt reality. The inability for many to feel climate change directly, to see it, might’ve made it more difficult to motivate widespread action. Well, that’s no longer the case. For some, climate warming has been all too obvious for years. The storms, floods, fires awakened them. The science and photos of melting ice caps, of polar bears on isolated ice flows, of dying reefs, of getting bitten by increasing numbers of ticks did this for them. Maybe, for others, the heat will do it.
Is it possible that grief for our planet and these deaths, this heat, this destruction can spur the human world to action to protect our physical world? Maybe (despite some thinking their money and air-conditioning will cushion and save them) the fact that we’re all in this together, with our children, our neighbors and lovers, our favorite flowers and trees, our pets. Maybe our righteous anger or our compassion and empathy will do it. If not, I hope concern for our health and our pocketbooks will do it.
*For more detailed information and possible ways of taking action, please utilize the links provided in the blog.
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