Has anyone noticed how warm it’s been lately? I mean, the winter in many place – where I live in the state of Maryland, for example – was warmer and milder than I remember in a long time. Now that summer is here, though, you can forget about it being cool.
On July 6, for example, in the shadow of Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, usually a cool place, at 9:00 pm, the temperature was 79 degrees F. The daytime temperature was past 90, and we in Maryland were getting some of the best of it. Other parts of the country, and of the world for that matter, had it much, much worse.
In 2022, heat waves pummeled almost every part of the globe. As global temperatures rise, heat waves are becoming more common, longer lasting, and more severe. The Met Office in London, for example, predicts that 2023 will be one of the hottest years on record. The Earth’s average temperature in 2023 is expected to be between 1.08 and 1.32 degrees Celsius higher that it was before 1900, the year that humans increased their burning of fossil fuels. That’s awful close to the 1.5 degrees Celsius that we’re trying not to exceed.
Now, one degree might not seem like much but you have to keep in mind that this is an average for the whole globe, and it has already caused some fairly catastrophic climate phenomena, and some areas have been harder hit than others. A third of Pakistan was flooded, causing massive loss of life, destruction of property, and loss of livelihoods. Record breaking heatwaves occurred in China, Europe, North and South America, and a long lasting drought in the Horn of Africa raises the specter of starvation on a massive scale.
In June 2023, large portions of the U.S. south and southwest were under heat alerts with temperatures over 100 degrees F. On June 28, 2023, for example, one county in the U.S. state of Texas reported 11 people dead from heat-related illnesses, and two others were reported to have died in other areas of the state. Given that many smaller cities and counties have to rely on outside agencies to do post-mortem examinations, it’s safe to say that these statistics are underreported.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that nearly 3,000 deaths annually are heat-related, and in years with prolonged heat waves, such as what we’re experiencing currently, heat-related deaths spike upwards. On June 29, 2023, the Washington Post’s heat tracker reported that 62 million people from Arizona to the Carolinas and from Texas to Illinois (a total of 18 states) were under a heat watch or warning, or a risk of exposure to potentially dangerous heat. Temperatures in the affected areas reached 100 to 105 degrees, with heat indexes as high as 115 degrees.
The whole world can look forward to hotter summers and it’s unlikely that there’s anything we can do at this point to turn that situation around. We’re just going to have to learn to live with it. And just in case you’re thinking that at least we’ll have milder winters, they too have their downside.
In the U.S. state of Georgia, the major peach growing areas endured record-breaking warmth this past winter. Because of the warm winter, the peach harvest was a tenth to a twentieth of what it normally is, in effect, wiping out up to 95 percent of the annual harvest for the state. Not only does this put an economic hardship on the farmers, it left many seasonal workers who harvest the orchards out of work, and it will mean significantly higher prices to consumers.
It’s safe to assume that other food crops might be similarly affected. I’ve seen it, in fact, in my local supermarket in Maryland. Corn shipped from Georgia farms this year is smaller and less sweet than last year’s crop and except for the runty ears that are on sale at 10 ears for two dollars, the price for fully matured ears is around four ears for seven dollars.
There you have it. Be prepared to look for creative ways to chill out and avoid heat injury. In the meantime, take climate change seriously and do your part to reduce carbon emissions.
Stay cool. – NWI
