I always watch the weather on channel 7 which is the local NBC station. Yesterday the main meteorologist there Greg Abbott said that climate change is causing an increase in rainfall by 15%. I have no idea where the figure comes from.
There was scant information on climate change till the second half of the 20th century. Slowly scientists realized that steadily adding carbon dioxide, and methane to the atmosphere as a by-product of industrial processes entails an inexorable, though very slow rise in temperature, with more clouds, and more precipitation.
Combine this with an increase in population. The number of people on planet Earth reached 8 billion in April of 2023. When there are more people then more crops have to be grown, manufacturing grows, and the Defense Department which was once more honestly called the War Department needs more and more billions of dollars every year to pay for increasingly complex weapons.
The status quo involving endless growth plus wars which turn cities into rubble can’t continue indefinitely. Will the endless expansion of human civilization have to contract at some time in the future? It has to happen somehow, at sometime with the impact of climate change inexorably worsening with the passage of time. A Harvard scientist put it succinctly when he wrote “One planet, one experiment.” Are homo sapiens ever so slowly failing the experiment?
Deuel Woodward resides in Chula Vista.
