The Climates, They Are A-Changing . . . 0
It’s February in the Mid-Atlantic States.
Two weeks ago, we had eight inches of snow and temperatures in the Fahrenheit twenties. Yesterday, it was 70 Fahrenheits. And it’s still February. I grew up in these parts and can testify that this is not How It Used To Be.
In the Bangor Daily News, Gwynne Dwyer has a theory.
. . . it was the people of the rich countries in the temperate zone – North America, Europe and Japan, mainly – who industrialized early and started burning large amounts of fossil fuel as long as two centuries ago. That’s how they got rich. Their emissions of carbon dioxide over the years account for 80 percent of the greenhouse gases of human origin that are now in the atmosphere, causing the warming, yet they get hurt least and last.
Well, what did you expect? The gods of climate are almost certainly sky gods, and sky gods are never fair. But they have always liked jokes, especially cruel ones, and they have come up with a great one this time. The people of the temperate zones are going to get hurt early after all, but not by gradual warming. Their weather is just going to get more and more extreme: heat waves, blizzards and flooding on an unprecedented scale.
