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MORE POWERFUL, DESTRUCTIVE and deadlier storms will be the “new normal” as the effects of climate change take root, the top US emergency management official said on Sunday after massive tornadoes ravaged six states.
Meteorologists and other scientists have long warned of the growing intensity of weather events such as storms, fires and flooding.
But the crisis hit home in a terrifying way overnight Friday into Saturday when more than two dozen twisters raked across large swaths of the American heartland, leaving more than 90 people dead, dozens missing and communities in ruin.
“This is going to be our new normal,” Deanne Criswell, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN’s “State of the Union” as she did a round of national Sunday morning talk shows before she headed to Kentucky to assess the damage and help coordinate the federal response.
“The effects that we’re seeing from climate change are the crisis of our generation,” the FEMA chief added.
Criswell warned of the challenge that the United States faces in addressing such severe weather events.
“We’re seeing more intense storms, severe weather, whether it’s hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“The focus I’m going to have is, how do we start to reduce the impacts of these events?”
The tornado that reduced several towns to rubble was a gargantuan twister. It rumbled along the ground for over 200 miles (320 kilometres), one of the longest, if not the longest, on record.
US President Joe Biden said Saturday the storm system was likely “one of the largest tornado outbreaks in our history.”
And while he stressed that the impact of climate change on these particular storms was not yet clear, “we all know everything is more intense when the climate is warming – everything.”
Scientists have stopped short of conclusive determinations that more violent storms are the result of climate change, but they agree that evidence is building.
One paper published recently by scientific association AGU says its analysis “suggests increasing global temperature will affect the occurrence of conditions favorable to severe weather.”
Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist, tweeted Saturday in response to the study, saying that while the effect of climate change on severe weather like tornadoes is not well established, “there is a growing body of research (including this late-breaking paper) suggesting that warming likely does increase such risks in many regions globally.”
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Lol, severe storms my a$$. More fear mongering
As ye sow, then so shall ye reap…..as true now as in biblical times.
It’s worth noting that those proclaiming that free market capitalism in its present fundamentalist suit of clothes is the most efficient way of doing things are also the most fervent in denying the reality that we need to stop destroying the ecological and climate systems that has resulted in present pandemic crisis and in the ongoing and rapidly increasing climate management crisis. They do this because recognising reality would interfere with the short term profitabilty of our present economy.
In both cases they show themselves as radical anarchists not conservatives wanting to protect what is necessary to keep humanity functioning. Radical anarchists like Trump, Johnston and Varadker and their ilk are willing to irresponsibly risk destroying what is necessary to save humanity from extinction – a liveable planet and a pandemic free population – by denying reality for the sugar hit of keeping an unsustainable economic system running.
@mmz: that sounded cool and hip in your head, didn’t it?
As for thr “we” bit, the vast majority of us are not out destroying the environment every day, stop trying to apply a socialist solution to a capitalist problem.
@mmz: Total jibberish. Nothing new about tornadoes or pandemics. More looney left conflation and fear mongering…
@LaoisWeather: Certainly if, for instance, you were a farmer in Laois you could be destroying the environment “every day” if you were borrowing money to expand your dairy or beef cattle herd. You would be adding to our national methane pollution load which the Taoiseach has committed to reduce by 10% over this decade to help our nation play its part in keeping global warming below the 1.5 degree level seen universally as the minimum needed to ensure continued human existence on this planet. Methane is about 80 times more destructive as a greenhouse gas than CO2 for the first few decades in the upper atmosphere before it degrades into CO2 and continues to destroy our climate for the next 400 years like regular CO2 put up their by human activity.
As to your other point, are there any capitalist solutions to capitalist problems that do not make the situation worse for a species making infinite damands on the resources of a finite planet?
I’m just glad those conspiracy loons will be proven wrong on this one too… hopefully (Covid lockdowns being switched out for Climate lockdowns).
I mean after they correctly called: repeated lockdowns, endless injections, vaccine passports, extended government powers…. the only thing we can laugh at them for now is 1) the economic collapse leading to UBI and a social credit system AND 2) Climate lockdowns to promote personal carbon taxing.
Where do they get their info from like? It’s like they don’t even watch RTE or TV3 news at all????
Fact is we don’t know what climate changes and disasters occurred in the past millions of years ago.
One thing is for sure buildings will have to be designed to withstand these storms and provide underground shelters like the air raid shelters during WW2. The Siren went off and everyone knew they had to get to the shelter fast.
@Aine O Connor:
Most of those areas that get hit by tornado’s have sirens and shelters. They test the sirens at noon on Saturday for 5 minutes, if live in certain parts you can hear multiple sirens at the same time from different directions and distances.
@Aine O Connor: So this is just another example of how our so called “efficient free market system” is becoming less efficient as it has to come up with the funds to, for instance – provide concrete shelters for thousands of people , provide sea wall defences for millions, provide new accommodation for the increased numbers flooded from their homes on flood plains, provide armies to patrol the borders because of climate change induced mass migration in the millions from the south to the northern hemispheres.
Nor can the system provide the billions needed worldwide to provide facilities for vaccinations and home working for millions during the present and future expected pandemics caused by our destruction of the bio sphere. How much damage will not dealing with these issues cost the economy and what is actually being saved by pretending we can carry on with “business as usual.” I saw an estimate that dealing with climate change properly over the next 20 years could cost 12 or 13 billion dollars. The US government alone spends nearly a trillion a year on its defence budget.
The problem is not that we cannot solve climate change, the problem is that we don’t want to give governments the power to do it, nor can we face the issue that the top 10% worldwide who produce 50% of all emissions are unwilling to loosen their stranglehold on the life chances of the other 90%.
have your say