Hurricane Irma was tied for the seventh most powerful hurricane to strike the United States mainland, as of Sunday morning.
At one point in the Caribbean, it clocked in as the strongest in the recorded history of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. Antigua and Barbuda's Prime Minister Gaston Browne reportedly said that the small island is now “barely habitable.”
Once this Atlantic hurricane season ends, the following message should be covered in any responsible news organization: This is the month climate change became a visible reality on U.S. soil.
Our nation has gone on comfortably for too long. We have insisted on tuning out the creeping reality of climate change. Only four in 10 Americans believe climate change will have harmful effects on wildlife, shorelines and weather patterns according to Pew.
While the poorer nations of the world face drought and flooding, our nation is a worldwide leader in carbon emissions per capita.
We have arrived at a new normal. An unprecedented drought has ruined the harvests and initiated fires in Montana and North Dakota. In California and Oregon, a historic heat wave has caused numerous fires.
What’s happening before us is so obvious. Rising temperatures, caused by carbon emissions, increase the risks of drought and fire. High ocean temperatures allow hurricanes like Harvey and Irma to grow and become history-defining storms.
Accusations of sensationalism will come from the country’s network of far-right media like Breitbart on both television and the internet, which will try and try without failure to deny the existence of our current predicament.
These conservatives, obviously bankrolled by energy interests, will get everyone on this planet killed if they are not stopped. Denial of climate change advocates for mass extinction on our planet.
This might be a surprise to many, since the media rarely reports it, but we are currently living through the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth. Not since the destruction of the dinosaurs has life on this planet been disappearing at such a rate.
This is being caused by human activity and is largely preventable. Never has human existence been more acutely capable of disappearing.
The U.S. has long been on its way to becoming a rogue state in the eyes of the world. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of the world views the U.S. as the greatest threat to world peace. U.S. climate policy without doubt contributes to this perspective, and this poll was conducted prior to President Donald Trump’s entrance to U.S. politics.
Republicans are clearly dangerous because of their denial of climate change, while the Democrats are dangerous because they seem too politically inept to beat Republicans at any level except the local school board.
The bottom line is unambiguous: The human race will not survive without the use of state power to mitigate the now irreversible effects of climate change.
luwrobin@indiana.edu
@lucas__robinson
