Late-night TV comedian Taylor Tomlinson describes telling a boyfriend that she is “the lesson that you just cannot learn!” That Catch-22 applies to what a changing climate is to the people of our nation, and world. We need to get slapped upside the head again and again until, finally, we learn. Until we don’t.
So we get used to the slapping. We are still in a learning experience right now. Weather this year is like a ‘50s DJ’s playlist: The hits just keep on coming! As this is written, wildfires fostered by heat waves threaten the Phoenix area.
In the Upper Midwest, multiple rivers remain over flood stage with some receding but others rising — and rain in the forecast. Various heat domes have covered much of the nation. And up next: Models predict an active hurricane season.
On the weekend of June 23, tornado warnings were issued for an unprecedented broad area of the Northeast, including all of Vermont and New Hampshire, along with significant portions of several other states. Our country is not alone. Floods in China exceed normal seasonal ones and involve some 300 million people.
A month ago, the temperate-zone states of Brazil adjoining Uruguay had destructive floods well above previous records. Early tropical storms in the Caribbean brought damaging wind and rains to coastal Mexico. Here in Minnesota, rainstorms and flooding dominate the news.
The Mississippi is rolling past downtown St. Paul at 114,000 cubic feet per second. Since 1893, it has passed that le.
