The Day After Tomorrow: Fictional Flick or Reality Show?

MONDAY, JULY 01, 2013: The list of freakish weather events is becoming alarming. States in the southwestern US are sweltering through near record-breaking, triple digit temperatures; this blistering heat even extending all the way up to North Dakota and the Canadian border. Such heat waves and their accompanying droughts are shriveling vegetation to tinder dry kindling… the dry lightning oft igniting it… the resultant raging wildfires scorching everything in their paths.

We’ve seen pre-Halloween ice storms weigh down, crack and topple trees that still have their leaves on. Our new millennium’s snowstorms are getting measured in multiple feet not inches. Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane / Super Storm Sandy have gone on record as the two costliest storms in US History; the latter making itself felt far into inland territory (including my home state of MI).

Killer tornados plague and devastate the Deep South, Great Plains and Midwest states. Derechos, assert themselves, too; these widespread, long-lived, straight-lined squalls (featuring hurricanic and tornadic wind velocities) are accompanied by severe lightning, hail and flash flooding. And some of those floods have approached Biblical proportions.

Are these just isolated incidents? I think not. What else could this be but the symptoms of Global Warming? And it just could be irreparable and irreversible.

The side effects, too, are becoming alarming. Thousands of humans are severely injured and many die. Downed power lines, zapped transformers and sheared off utility poles black out entire regions for weeks and longer. The impact of toppled, inundated and burnt to ashes architecture, overtaxed infrastructure and storm re-landscaped coastlines is felt long after each storm passes.

Other weather related problems arise, as well. Too early warm weather causes planted crops to grow before they should; fruit trees to blossom too soon; only to be destroyed when sudden, more seasonable, killer frosts later descend on the fields and trees. This not only lays waste to the profit margins of farmers and produce growers, but also hits the produce consumers in the wallet. In time, we could be hit in our tummies, too, when severe food shortages cause widespread famine.

Beyond that, as northern latitudes heat up, tropical insects, such as venomous scorpions and malaria spreading mosquitos will eventually be finding these newly habitable regions inviting. The environment gone wild is also sending migratory birds mixed messages, delaying / preventing their flying south for the winter; even causing some species to fly further north. Either scenario (since birds could never hope to sort this all out), not being able to secure the proper temperatures they need to survive could kill them; as could not being able to find food sources due to growing seasons being out of whack.

But there’s even more to consider here. If you’ll excuse the wordplay… I’m just warming up.

I have seen the evidence of global warming trends here in Michigan. During the first half of June on the 13th, a weather warning informed us that a derecho was heading our way (fortunately is didn’t arrive). Also, for the past two weeks, on a daily basis, we’ve been swamped by an endless series of torrential downpours; each lasting anywhere from mere minutes to several hours. Abruptly, the sun would next reappear (for awhile) and then, the rain/sun cycle would repeat itself again and again. The way the first week of July’s extended forecast is shaping up, there’ll likely be more of the same.

On my frequent power / nature walks, I’ve also been noticing the changes in a river. This past April, it overflowed its banks to the point where the entire park it courses through was practically inundated. Throughout June it was also far deeper and wider than normal. And to think that just one year ago, during a heat wave of upper nineties / triple digits, it nearly dried up.

For any sensible person… by now the reaction would be: The time for action is long overdue. Yet, even with the slightest whisper of the phrase “global warming”, invariably, the kneejerk reaction of Republican legislator jerks will be, “There’s no real proof that humans are causing it.” As if what? We should just keep on plodding along? Business as usual? At all costs? But think of what the cost of doing nothing could be.

I mean, WTF is it going to take to convince these Righties that it’s virtually certain that they’re wrong? An environmental catastrophe of global magnitude? Wouldn’t you rather err on the side of caution than err on the side of foolhardiness?

Humankind’s carbon footprints are all over the place. We are trampling planet Earth to death; to a degree where the film, The Day After Tomorrow, just could wind up being transformed from a fictional plot into an apocalyptic reality show.