Hurricane Milton is the Result of Climate Change
As humanity destroys the planet, it's destroying us in return
Only weeks after Hurricane Helene wreaked devastation across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, killing more than 230 people, Florida residents are now in the path of another hurricane heading their way.
According to Deadline,
On Monday, NBC 6 South Florida meteorologist John Morales emotionally reported on the storm’s projected path, breaking down into tears over the “incredible hurricane,” which has quickly intensified from a Category 3 to 5, with wind speeds expected to peak at 185 mph.
“It has dropped 50 milibars in 10 hours,” he said before pausing and choking up. “I apologize. This is just horrific.”
In his report, Morales continues by saying that this hurricane increased in ways that could never have been predicted by computer models. He states that this troubling occurrence was caused by climate change.
When you usually watch weather reports on your local television station, the reporter usually just points at the map, and tells you the temperature. I have never seen a meteorologist get choked up like this before over a weather report, no matter how extreme. Watch the video to see what I mean.
Florida meteorologist becomes emotional while reporting on 'horrific' Hurricane Milton
Hurricane specialist John Morales of WTVJ, an NBC News affiliate, becomes visibly emotional while reporting on…www.nbcnews.com
If you are in Florida right now, depending on your area, you may be required to evacuate prior to Milton making landfall.
In the city of St. Petersburg, residents have been issued the following information:
Weather: Currently forecasted to make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, Milton poses a greater threat than Hurricane Helene, with higher wind speeds and a potential storm surge of 10–15 feet.
Evacuation Orders: Mandatory evacuations have been issued by Pinellas County for all residents in evacuation zones A, B and C and ALL mobile homes, effective immediately, today, Monday, Oct. 7. We urge all residents to heed these evacuation orders.
In the following report from NBC’s Tom Llamas, he shows the piles of debris from Hurricane Helene, and he declares matter-of-factly that these storms are caused by Climate Change.
These terrible storms, and the devastation and death left in their wake should be a huge wake-up call to all of us that the effects of climate change aren’t something that will happen in a far-off future that can easily be ignored. They are happening now.
Unfortunately, in the United States, Climate Change is still often seen as a political issue. When Vice President Kamala Harris tried to contact Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about the FEMA response to Hurricane Helene, he declined her call, for political reasons.
When asked about it, NBC News says that VP Harris had this to say:
Later in the day, Harris also addressed this report, saying, “Moments of crisis, if nothing else, should really be the moment that anyone who calls themselves a leader says they’re going to put politics aside and put the people first. People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games with this moment in these crisis situations, these are the height of emergency situations, it’s just utterly irresponsible and it is selfish.”
However unfortunate and disturbing DeSantis’ response (or lack of response in this case) sounds to many of us, it should come as no surprise to Florida residents, who are by now familiar with his denials of Climate Change.
Only months ago, DeSantis signed a bill into law that removes Climate Change language from many Florida laws.
According to a May 2024 report from the Florida Phoenix:
“Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries,” DeSantis said on X on Wednesday afternoon. The message included a statement reading, “Radical green zealots want to impose their climate agenda on people through restrictions, regulations, and taxes.”
The legislation removes over 50 lines in state law that were established in 2008 under then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist when it comes to addressing climate change. The Crist administration also required the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to set clean energy goals. (Crist is now a Democrat.)
Among the parts of current law that will be removed are a provision for addressing “the potential of global climate change” as a state energy policy, and a provision for the state to “play a leading role in developing and instituting energy management programs aimed at promoting energy conservation, energy security, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”
It removes provisions that all state agencies shall contract for meeting and conference space only with hotels or conference facilities that have received the “Green Lodging” designation from the Department of Environmental Protection “for best practices in water, energy, and waste efficiency standards, unless the responsible state agency head makes a determination that no other viable alternative exists.”
The legislation prevents local governments from enacting some energy policy restrictions and prohibits the construction or expansion of offshore wind facilities and certain wind turbines within a mile of the coast (Florida has no such facilities currently).
When a politician in a state facing weather emergencies caused by Climate Change, it only sets the stage for more damage from future weather emergencies. If DeSantis fails to acknowledge that climate change even exists, he is stopping the people of the state of Florida from preparing for future storms. Not only that, but he is stopping work to combat climate change in the state in its tracks.
Denying climate change is dangerous, because it leads to a failure to take much-needed action.
NOW is the time to act!
The wealth of available research on climate change has shown that we could reach a tipping point by 2029 or 2030 where the effects of climate change will become irreversible.
It is crucial that we take drastic action to stop climate change before 2030, a date when many scientists say that the negative effects of climate change will become irreversible.
According to the United Nations,
To limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre- industrial levels, emissions must already be decreasing and need to be cut by almost half by 2030, just seven years away.
Urgent and transformative action is crucial, going beyond mere plans and promises
We have known about climate change, and the dangers that it poses, since the 1970’s. Growing up in the 80’s, we learned in school about the importance of living in a sustainable way; how to conserve energy at home and to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
During the last 40 years, many of us have been doing our part at home. We have been using less energy, taking public transit, recycling, taking shorter showers, and buying local and organic food.
In European countries, the warnings about climate change have been taken seriously. Here in Germany, they are leading the way with both plastic recycling and electric car sales.
The EU as a whole has committed to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030, and achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Meanwhile two countries, Bhutan and Suriname, have already reached net zero emissions today.
If we don’t all take a lead from the countries already achieving net zero emissions, and soon, then we have a lot more trouble in store for us in the future, with climate events only getting worse until they effect weather patterns even more, cause droughts and fires, reduce the supplies of food and clean water worldwide, and cause people to die from extreme temperatures.
The human body isn’t meant to withstand such high temperatures as what we have already seen, and are intensifying year after year.
According to a report by Nasa:
“What we see isn’t good — impacts of climate change are in many cases larger in response to a half a degree (of warming) than we’d expected,” said Shindell, who was formerly a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. “We see faster acceleration of ice melting, greater increases in tropical storm damages, stronger effects on droughts and flooding, etc. As we calibrate our models to capture the observed responses or even simply extrapolate another half a degree, we see that it’s more important than we’d previously thought to avoid the extra warming between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.”
Since temperatures are quickly rising, in many cases even more quickly than previously predicted, it is time to stand up and take notice!
US Failure to act
Unfortunately, not every country has tried so hard to reduce emissions. The two countries with the highest amount of carbon emissions (which cause global warming) are China and the United States.
According to the Energy and Environmental Study Institute,
The United States accounts for only about five percent of global population, but is responsible for 30 percent of global energy use and 28 percent of carbon emissions. This results in a U.S. per capita emissions rate 2.2 times greater than that of China, which houses about 20 percent of the world’s population. Though China has lower per capita emissions, the larger population offsets that, resulting in over 70 percent more carbon dioxide emissions annually than in the United States. Differences in per capita emissions mainly attest to the different levels of development across the globe, though there are significant differences between developed countries as well, reflecting the fact that some nations are more energy-efficient than others. For example, the United States emitted 16.1 tons of carbon per person in 2015, compared to just 6.2 tons/person in the United Kingdom.
In other words, one person in the United States is contributing more to global warming than one person in any other country. The US isn’t doing their fair share to take responsibility for combatting climate change, and historically has bowed out of climate change reduction treaties since back in the 1990's.
According to Sage Journals,
In July 1997, five months before the Kyoto meeting, the Senate passed the Byrd–Hagel resolution (hereafter ‘Byrd–Hagel’), stating that:
the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol … which would (A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol … also mandates new specific scheduled commitments … for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or (B) result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.1
The United States has continued to put capitalism and profit ahead of the environment, which is one reason that environmental policies world wide are falling flat. If one of the biggest polluters refuses to take action to reduce climate change in time, then they are putting lives at risk not only with events like Hurricane Milton which is heading for Florida, but all over the rest of the world as well.
During the Biden administration, the US has passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in 2022 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021. However, it is unclear if the deadlines on emissions reductions will be able to be met.
According to the University of Colorado, Boulder:
“America stands at a pivotal moment with the passage of its ambitious climate legislation, said Leaf Van Boven, a co-author of the paper and a professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU Boulder. “The nation’s ability to unite behind these transformative policies will either ignite a sustainable energy revolution or fumble into the familiar deadlock of political discord.”
All too often, the United States has allowed the climate to become a political issue, and put other priorities ahead of combatting climate change. By allowing the climate crisis to become a polarizing political wedge, the United States often fails to take critical actions to stop the catastrophic damage caused by climate change.
In the last 20 years, Democrats will pass laws to help the environment, and Republicans will either repeal or defund the initiatives. This happens when we value capitalism over the health of the planet and put short-term financial gain ahead of the long-term survival of humanity.
Just take a look at Donald Trump’s stance on the climate and you will see this quite clearly.
In an October 1, 2024 report by The Guardian:
When Trump visited hurricane-ravaged Georgia on Monday, he said: “We’re here today to stand with complete solidarity with the people of Georgia and all those suffering in the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Helene.” But he is now headed back to the campaign trail to court donations from the fossil fuel industry, which accounts for over 75% of all planet-heating pollution and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions.
When the US elects leaders like Trump or DeSantis, they are effectively saying that they don’t want to play nice with the rest of the world. They are going to continue to hide their heads in the sand while southern states are decimated by climate change, and continue to pollute and reduce restrictions on the oil industry so that oil executives can line their pockets.
In order to stop the climate crisis from becoming irreversible before the 2030 date given by the United Nations, there needs to be full buy-in and support from every country, worldwide.
Everyone, everywhere needs to become involved in taking drastic climate action today, before we leave our children a world that is quite literally, on fire.
Actions you can take
Though combatting climate change seems a daunting task for individuals to undertake, when we come together across the globe to do the work, there is much that can be accomplished!
Here are some ways to become engaged in stopping climate change today:
Invest in saving energy at home
Consider solar panels and electric vehicles
Reduce use of single-use plastic containers
Use public transportation, carpool or telecommute
Educate yourself on the latest in climate change news and research
Talk to friends, family and co-workers about Climate Change
Support Climate Change Legislation in your local area
Boycott companies that are the largest polluters
Shop local and organic for your food
Write to your elected officials about climate change
Volunteer and get involved with organizations fighting climate change
If everyone around the world is doing their part, it is still possible to fight climate change, and win. But, it isn’t something we can put off until tomorrow! Taking action on a daily basis is required from all of us, if we want to create a beautiful, sustainable future for our planet.
Do we want to be known as the generation that saved humanity, or the generation that destroyed it? Whatever we do RIGHT NOW is going to determine how history looks back at us… if there is anyone left to look back at all.
Read more about climate change here:
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