How did a small town [Lytton BC] in Canada become one of the hottest places on Earth?

The unprecedented heatwave in the Pacific north-west risks becoming the new normal if we don’t act now

by Eric Holthaus

Wed 30 Jun 2021

WN: We’re in this new normal, with much more and worse to come!¹

And subsequently this grand tragedy happened to Lytton (by Andrea Woo, Patrick White and Carrie Tait, Lytton, British Columbia, Published July 1, 2021): ‘Like a war zone’: B.C. village of Lytton destroyed by fire.

Unlike the story, Chicken Little: The Sky is Falling, and its final line,

. . . grateful that the fox had not eaten them—and that the world was not ending! Instead, they all lived happily ever after.,

Bart Simpson and the other dupes on ACD

it is accurate to say that much of the world is ending–as we know it; that prospects for widespread human flourishing even in wealthy countries, are drastically diminishing; that the ACD (Anthropogenic Climate Disruption) pandemic is out of control the world over.

And while the naysayers in the above story are the good guys, they are not in our human story. On the contrary. For far more cataclysmic than acorns dropping on heads has been happening since the nineteenth century; or one might say alternatively, the world is threatened with a deluge of sizzling “acorns” that menaces every aspect of our common human existence.

I have two brothers who deny all this. And like them there are millions around the world awash in a form of gaslighting Reality itself, who one might say emphatically have already, in their ACD denialism, gone nuts!

Yes, for them, the sky indeed has already fallen–the wool pulled completely over their eyes . . .

excerpt:

Visits: 75

1. See: Scientists warn of climate change intensifying heat waves, by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk – 06/30/21, where we read in part:

   Experts also raised concerns about the human impacts, particularly to those in disadvantaged communities or who are otherwise vulnerable.

   “Think about all the vulnerable people: pregnant women, babies, the elderly … anyone who is at risk in society is also going to have compounding impacts from a heat event like this,” Myhre said. “Just like COVID, this is an example of how inequity is exacerbated when disaster happens.”

   “This is just the beginning of the heat waves we will see,” Myhre added, warning of “really catastrophic heat-induced events in places that have no infrastructure to protect people.”

   “One of the reasons why we are able to navigate the heat waves this year is we currently don’t have any smoke and we’re able to ventilate our houses,” she noted. However, she said, “if we get to a point where we have smoke,” the effects of the heat will be even more acutely felt.

   See too: Climate change has gotten deadly. It will get worse., by Sarah Kaplan, July 3, 2021. We read:

   Another physical phenomenon, called the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, shows that for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture. This means that warm conditions make storms much wetter, leading to record-breaking rainfall events like Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

   …

   Extreme heat is likely to be one of those things. Studies of heat waves suggest that a half a degree Celsius increase in summertime temperatures can lead to a 150 percent increase in the number of heat waves that kill 100 people or more.

   Research published last year in the journal Science found that the human body can’t tolerate temperatures higher than 95 degrees when combined with 100 percent humidity.Jeff Duchin, Seattle and King County’s chief public health officer, put it more bluntly: “Climate change is a health emergency,” he said in a statement this weekend. “And reducing greenhouse gas emissions is literally a matter of life and death.”

   …

   “It did not have to be this way,” [Michael, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California] Wehner said. “We have known enough to take action for 20 years. And if we had taken action 20 years ago, it would be a lot easier.”

   “But there’s no ‘I told you so,’” he continued. “I just feel bad. Just bad. I really wish we had been wrong. But we weren’t.”

   The only comfort, said [Katharine, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University and chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy] Hayhoe, is in knowing that action can still be taken. Though the world could exceed 1.5 degrees of warming within this decade, scientists say we can avoid crossing that threshold if we cut global greenhouse gas emissions by about 7.6 percent per year.

   Such cuts would require an unprecedented transformation of human society. But look at the alternative, Hayhoe said.

   “We have choices to make, she said. “And the quicker we make those choices, the better off we will all be. The future is in our hands.”[↩]