Angry Summers...

Credit: David Gray Getty Images

Topics: Climate Change, Existentialism, Global Warming, Thermodynamics

In the U.S., it is post the winter solstice: tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun, our days are shorter, nights are longer and we usually experience precipitation in the forms of rain and snow.

The southern hemisphere is tilted the same degrees TOWARDS the sun, thus it's their summer. A summer typically marked by tourism, lazy beaches, mixed drinks and one would assume selfies of once-in-a-lifetime experiences. This is what was the usual and typical.

No hellscape could be penned more bleak than what we're seeing now. A billion living creatures have died, and likely are headlong barreling to the endangered species list. The elderly, sick and disabled are cannon fodder. The prime minister, firmly in the pockets of big coal, is as much a climate change lunatic as our current lobotomized "leader."

Oh yes, endangered species are not important now, are they (even if its us)? The "Environmental Protection Agency" is oxymoron. Climate change is a Chinese hoax, and the Australians just need better "forest management" by sweeping as advised to California and (not-at-all) practiced by residents of Finland. If soon-to-be past is prologue, we can only expect a repeat performance in the northern hemisphere once we get past May, especially in states like Texas, where water rationing by zip code is more or less expected, and a spark on a curb scratched by the pipe of a pickup truck in high heat and drought can cause infernos.

Avarice and abject ignorance will kill us all.

Summer in Australia use to be something we yearned for: long, lazy days spent by the beach or pool, backyard barbecues, and games of cricket with family and friends. But recent summers have become a time of fear: Schools and workplaces are closed because of catastrophic fire danger, while we shelter in air-conditioned spaces to avoid dangerous heat waves and hazardous levels of smoke in the air. Campgrounds have been closed for the summer, and entire towns have been urged to evacuate ahead of “Code Red” fire weather. Welcome to our new climate.

Of course, unusually hot summers have happened in the past; so have bad bushfire seasons. But the link between the current extremes and anthropogenic climate change is scientifically indisputable.

The fires raging across the southern half of the Australian continent this year have so far burned through more than 5 million hectares. To put that in context, the catastrophic 2018 fire season in California saw nearly 740,000 hectares burned. The Australian fire season began this year in late August (before the end of our winter). Fires have so far claimed nine lives, including two firefighters, and destroyed around 1,000 homes. It is too early to tell what the toll on our wildlife has been, but early estimates suggest that around 500 million animals have died so far, including 30 percent of the koala population in their main habitat. And this is all before we have even reached January and February, when the fire season typically peaks in Australia.

Australia’s Angry Summer: This Is What Climate Change Looks Like
Nerilie Abram, Scientific American