Hot Enough for Ya?

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“Just because we’ve temporarily gone over 1.5 degrees doesn’t mean we’ve breached the Paris Agreement limit,” cautioned Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus program. For that to happen the globe needs to exceed that threshold for a much longer time period, such as a couple of decades instead of a couple of weeks.

From The Associated Press: “June temperatures briefly passed key climate threshold. Scientists expect more such spikes”

With all due respect to Burgess, I sense hedging here. From another climatologist, there’s this:

Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist who like Rahmstorf wasn’t involved in collecting the Copernicus data, said its significance is still unclear.

“But sometime in the next few years we will shatter global temperature records,” he said. “It’s the coming El Nino, yes. But it isn’t just El Nino. We’ve loaded the climate system. No one should be surprised when we set extended global records. 1.5 C is coming fast; it may already be here.”

- ibid. 

As I write this, we’re under sever heat watches here in Houston where the heat index has been hitting 110 degrees F/43 degrees C. Our projected high (sans index) is 102/36 degrees. It is already 94 degrees and only eleven o’clock. 

Now before anyone says, “but you’re in Texas”, I will tell you right now that we don’t hit these kinds of temperatures until very much into July (well, that hasn’t been the case in the past couple of years; indeed, increasing hot temperatures have been coming earlier and earlier). Also, please note, we haven’t actually hit summer yet (and have already hit highs in the hundreds this week).

A dear friend of mine in Varanasi, India, mentioned to me a couple of days ago that temps were actually higher than what we have but we are now on par with. Plus, they were also expecting a dust storm and have had no rainfall for quite some time. This may change with the cyclone that has hit landfall in the west, but bear in mind that reservoir levels are down significantly in Uttar Pradesh and here in Houston, this year has seen an uptick of groundwater overuse. This doesn’t spell good news for water availability. 

The point is, though, that we are - right now - watching the world heat up. Even if, as Sarah Burgess and her colleagues at the Copernicus program would like to say that we - humankind - haven’t breached the Paris Agreement, it’s small comfort to millions being affected in two of their countries’ largest cities. The implications for surrounding populations are obvious. One need only extrapolate data from there (or better yet, do some research online in real time to check out local forecasts around the world) and I find it dubious that a couple of decades is a reasonable amount of time to wait to catch up and surpass the Paris Accords. 

My feelings about the Paris Accords is that they are used as a “get out of jail” card for developed nations. Saying that we haven’t breached the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold consistently or for a longer time period is disingenuous. In one sense, Burgess is right; we should wait and see if the conditions hold for a longer period, but even if they don’t, we have already breached that threshold even if only briefly. 

I don’t particularly want to rain on anyone’s parade, though rain would be nice right now, but given the lack of action on governments across the globe to really take the situation seriously, it’s difficult to feel positive. Climate change doesn’t care where you live or if you’re on the Right or the Left or what your lifestyle choices are or where your people came from. It’s here in a very big way. The wildfires in Canada are not canaries in coal mines; we’ve had plenty of prognosticating fowl. 

Typically, when I close a post here, I like to add some action items. In this case, I’ll simply say that wherever you are, contact your political representatives. If you don’t live in a place where those are elected democratically, lean on them anyway, put some pressure on them. If you’re here in the states, call/email/drop by your rep’s office. 

Throw in with organizations that are putting political pressure on our so-called leaders and corporations. 

My assumption is that most people do what they can. Individually, we recycle, try to use mass transit more than drive, maybe even walk or bike to places. Perhaps we use special light bulbs, watch our energy consumption, and so on. All of this is good, but our efforts are quickly offset by the sluggishness of politicians and industrial corporations. 

We can still continue to march and protest, but I would add that it’s as important, if not more so, to support non-profits suing governments and businesses that continue to push for deregulation of the petroleum industry or that have rolled back environmental legislation. And vote. Get out and vote for the candidates most likely to not wind up in some CEO’s back pocket. Even better, if they’re likely to fight that CEO in public via policy and legislation. 

It’s a long haul, folks. We’re all in it together whether we want to be or not.

References, resources, reports for download

Associated Press. “June temperatures briefly passed key climate threshold. Scientists expect more such spikes.” https://apnews.com/article/global-warming-climate-change-el-nino-temperatures-d2d8d8f717237667bb408a486d7158bf. June 16, 2023

CEIC. “Current Reservoir Level: Central: Uttar Pradesh: Rihand.” https://www.ceicdata.com/en/india/current-reservoir-level/current-reservoir-level-central-uttar-pradesh-rihand.

Janardhana, S., et al. “Estimation of groundwater storage loss for the Indian Ganga Basin using multiple lines of evidence.” Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-28615-y. 31 January 2023.

Texas Water Development Board. “Groundwater Database (GWDB) Reports and Downloads.” https://www.twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/data/gwdbrpt.asp.

United States Geological Survey. “Groundwater levels for Texas.” https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/tx/nwis/gwlevels.