You Can’t Escape Climate Change
No Matter How Hard You Try
“We now return to our regularly-scheduled programming.”
That’s what it feels like every time I finish reading the latest article on the climate crisis, or listening to a podcast, or watching a documentary, or hearing reports of another weather calamity happening in the world.
“And now, back to the show~!”
In my daily, small-town life, people busy themselves with day jobs, trips to the grocery store, and evening sports. They talk about a recent flight they took. They buy plastic-encased foodstuffs and clothes and run their fuel-oil furnaces and plan their vacation to Disneyworld. Nobody acts like we’re on track for 3 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of this Century.
Bangladesh is experiencing record-breaking heat right now. Swaths of Brazil are under water. A tornado just pummeled the Midwestern United States.
“It’s just weather,” my father says, about what he considers sensationalist news coverage. “Yeah it’s getting a little hotter, but it’s just weather.”
My wife suggests that many, perhaps even most people, don’t understand what 3 degrees Celsius of warming really even means. As Americans, we think in terms of Fahrenheit, so that’s the difference between 68…
