mosquitos, dams, and heat
what could possibly go wrong?
The sweltering temperatures in China, discussed twice over the last couple of months in this column, now twins with the similarly deadly days of the past week in the southwest of the United States. Beijing got a break today with a high of 28 degrees Celsius rather than the 40+ degree readings characterising so much of the past month.
Crops are unable to thrive under the conditions we have seen in northeastern China this summer.Indeed, one of the important longer term effects of the recent parching conditions across northeastern, usually more temperate, China decimates Xi Jinping’s oft-noted ambition to guarantee ‘food security’. This term means a China which does not rely on outsiders for its food needs, assuring China can not fall prey to those seeking to undermine its sovereignty as a great power. Seems like a stretch but feeding your people matters more than lost of other stuff. Two consecutive summers—and it is merely June—of parching conditions undercut the food production as the country has little excess water available for agriculture, with impinging desertification from the northwest and so much demand for water in population centers and the coal-mining industry. The CCP Chairman thinks there are now bounds we won’t cross to humiliate them.
This morning I heard that the readings fully twenty degrees Fahrenheit above average in some parts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona will continue through the end of the week. Forecasts call for the heat to expand north to Kansas through Friday. Some man took his stepson hiking in the Big Bend National Park where they perished under 119 degree readings.
Phoenix’s projected weather readings at day’s hottest will range from 105 to 112 degrees. Perhaps Arizona heat is not as surprising as the same numbers for Dallas at this point. What is fascinating is that the forecast for Beijing, except for today’s relatively moderate high, is precisely the same even if translated into Fahrenheit. This is despite the Chinese capital being several hundred miles further north in what assumably would be somewhat more temperate conditions. Alas, this is not the case.
The 40+ degree Celsius readings may not sound as intimidating as 113 degrees Fahrenheit but the extreme heat readings are the same, just in two different measuring scales. 40 degrees Celsius threatens people, animals, and crops whether under a dictatorship or a democracy; politics seems a bit irrelevant when this pain inflicts itself on those under its dome.
This summer, however, we would be remiss to ignore other signs of the impact climate change is bringing. We miss some issues because the ‘lag time’ manifesting effects but they are occurring with both greater frequency and intensity. Even Bangladesh, a nation built on a floodplain and subjected to so many water-induced traumas over its fifty year history, now confronts new effects from water and the long-term erosion of its soils.
A mere two weeks ago press reports focused on the toxic air quality in New York City as the smoke from wildfires drifted south from Quebec. The wildfires still burn but the meteorological conditions do not trap the smoke in the largest metropolis or in the nation’s capital. However, the wildfires were never isolated simply to Quebec; many were on the Canadian prairie. Those fires now show their damage as well, illustrated by the smoke now blanketing the Midwest even though it does not draw the attention that New York did. The physical danger of this air overwhelming some communities still afflicts the elderly, the young, and the pulmonary-compromised, regardless of their location. The end of this problem does not appear in sight, a reminder of how long summer can last in North America before winter snows tend to eradicate the burning.
Late, as I finished this, an alert came that the fire-driven smoky smiles will afflict Maryland again this weekend.
Climate change also brings more extreme weather effects in other ways. The incredible snows that buried the west coast of the United States this past winter may have been part of the impending cycle we call ‘El Niño’ but the magnitude of the subsequent melt meets a fragile dam infrastructure across the nation’s most populous state. The farmers of the Central Valley will welcome adequate water supplies this summer but the sheer power of this relatively unknown phenomenon is a danger requiring anything but a quick fix. The relevant dams and city sewage infrastructure are across the country, ultimately affecting all of us. Watch the PBS history of the 1889 Johnstown Flood if you want to see horror in slow motion. It may have been but it was a cautionary tale about the failure of seemingly safe infrastructure. Then again, perhaps monitoring alone will suffice this year but the danger of a dam failure is real and would be catastrophic for those downstream.
Perhaps the most noteworthy long-term effect is climate change is only beginning to appear in the United States. As I noted only yesterday, the availability of improved health conditions, with medical advances, in the early twenty-first century is markedly higher than it was as this nation ended its colonial experience under Britain almost two hundred fifty years back. But, many in the United States are turning their back on medical professionals because of the belief these citizens know better or that medicine is now completely tied to a Bill Gates conspiracy related to vaccines. Addiitonally, we have an American tendency to assume solving health issues is a ‘one and done’ problem, much as we see international conflicts.
The appearance of five cases of malaria in the continental United States recently, however, ought give us pause. Malaria remains, along with tuberculosis, one of the major purveyors of death around the world even though we eradicated it here decades ago. With warmer conditions and greater the propensity for global travel linking us more closely together, the disease reappeared in Florida and Texas.
Would we recognise it in time to take steps to eradicate malaria re-establishing itself firmly in the United States? In one perverse note, mosquitos spread malaria but the dirth of water in so many portions of the country probably prevent some mosquito breeding. The transmission in these five cases, however, was not thought due to mosquitos in water ponds in someone’s back yard in Kingman, Texas. Should we take that as a reason to ignore the five cases? Should we do more than issue health advisories? Are those too much to raise in this highly polarised political environment?
The world first began attacking the climate issue with the Rio Conference fully 31 years ago. Rio in 1992 focused on the denuding of the Amazon which exacerbated effects of industrial gasses creating a hole in the ozone layer. Sadly, it appears the pledges are failing across the world to protect the trees and their miraculous but vital power in helping ameliorate human behaviour. We keep counting on pixie dust, I suppose.
In the late 1970s, the British science journalist James Burke did a truly wonderful BBC series called ‘Connections’. I did not see it until a decade later but found it enthralling as it showed linkages between phenomena that otherwise seemed unrelated. At the same time, Burke showed how those disparate things also could lead to some unforeseen solutions to problems.
I hope someone is thinking about these related and seemingly completely different events and trends in 2023.
We finally got our ‘gullywasher’ this afternoon in Annapolis. It wasn’t quite Bangkok in a monsoon (few things are) but it was most welcome. Now, if we could get it to repeat several more days.
Wishing you safety, survivable conditions, and good health. I strongly doubt this is our last discussion of climate change and its effects on our world.FIN
Manuela Andreoni, ‘Despite Global Pledges, Tree Loss is Up Sharply in Tropical Forests’, NewYorkTimes.com, 27 June 2023, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/climate/trees-tropical-forests-deforestation.html
‘Past PA: the Johnstown Flood’, Episode 3, pbs.com, 17 May 2023, retrieved at https://www.pbs.org/video/the-johnstown-flood-vmuhce/
Somini Sengupta, ‘Here’s A Look at the Water Crises that Might Be Coming at You Soon’, NewYorkTimes.com, 25 June 2023, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/climate/rainstorms-hidden-flood-risk.html/06/25/climate/bangladesh-water-floods.html
Elena Shao and Raymond Zhong, ‘Here’s How Much Hotter Than Normal This June Has Been’, NewYorkTimes.com, 13 June 2023, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/13/climate/global-warming-heat-june.html
Raymond Zhong, ‘Intensifying Rains Post Hidden Flood Risks Across the United States’, NewYorkTimes.com, 27 June 2023, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/climate/rainstorms-hidden-flood-risk.html