Don't blame only climate deniers for our warming world
A wildfire rages near Landiras, southwestern France, on July 13. The blaze was among a number scorching parts of Europe, including Portugal and Spain. Credit: AP
You’re forgiven if you felt like the whole world was roasting last week.
Dozens of heat records were broken in this nation and abroad. More than 100 million Americans in 28 states were under heat alerts, with 60 million in at least 16 states sweltering under triple-digit temperatures. Texas and Oklahoma hit 115 degrees; Austin, Texas has had more than 40 days over 100 degrees this year. Numerous spots in the Midwest are expected to top the century mark this week. The Southwest has had dayslong strings of triple-digit temps, and we know how hot it’s been here on the East Coast.
Across the pond, more than 2,000 people died in Spain and Portugal from heat-related causes. France and the United Kingdom were among many places in Europe that smashed records, with normally temperate Britain topping 104 degrees.
This isn’t only a numbers story. River water in France was too hot to cool the country’s nuclear reactors, reducing France’s available nuclear power. Grass fires and wildfires broke out in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Poland, Greece, and the United Kingdom, including within London’s city limits. Thousands had to flee their homes. Two airports in Britain were closed when runways melted.
We’ve been seeing variations of this for a while now. Sometimes it’s fire, sometimes heat, sometimes storms, sometimes water, in different places at different times, but in their entirety, everywhere at any time. This latest spasm wasn’t just some kind of karmic payback for Joe Manchin torpedoing — at least temporarily — the remnants of the Democratic Party’s climate plan. This is our life now. As many have noted: This summer could the coolest of the rest of our lives.
Some still disagree. I’m done with them. I used to want to debate deniers, to show them the light. No more. It’s no longer an honest disagreement. Now it’s willful disbelief. It’s the embrace of a hoax against all evidence to the contrary and with no, or at best twisted, evidence in support.
But as we — our governments, our corporations, our own selves — struggle to do what needs to be done to stop the globe from overheating, we can’t lay the blame for inaction or a lack of urgency at their doorstep alone. They are part of it. Manchin is part of it. But many are part of it.
The Republican Party collectively has had little or no interest in combating climate change and has stymied efforts to do so. The Supreme Court had made it harder for a president to regulate emissions. Corporations hide their complicity or lack of redress behind greenwashing promises. Regular folks who say they care about global warming have fought against wind and solar installations near them because they wouldn’t look good or would mar views or would mean cables would be buried under their street. As voters, many of us fail to put climate change at or near the top of our concerns in electing representatives. Something else is always more important.
There’s something about the human condition that causes us to resist change, even as catastrophe looms. Some of us don’t think it’s a catastrophe. Some of us don’t think it will affect us. Some of us think we can deal with it later. Some of us are just plain afraid of change. Some of us will stay in the house as long as we can even as fires burn and waters rise around us.
That’s not to say good things aren’t happening in this fight. They are. But more is needed.
Shrill cries that warn of impending doom have not moved enough people. What’s truly scary is the possibility that the only thing that will move enough of us is if the house burns down.
n COLUMNIST MICHAEL DOBIE’S opinions are his own.
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
