Hurricane Irma and Thinking About Future Climate Change

I haven’t written about the hurricanes this season because much of what I’d say, and will say, has become mainstream.

Yes, this is related to climate change, because hurricanes take their energy from the heat of ocean water and ocean water is hotter.

In the late 90s, my friend Stirling Newberry posited that the first major effect of climate change would be more extreme weather events, and more powerful ones. The journals at the time wouldn’t publish, but now everyone knows who cares to know.

So listen, now, and carefully. One of the next great concerns (and it has already begun) is going to be changes in routine rainfall patterns. Those changes are going to disrupt or destroy agriculture in large regions, as well as the typical vegetation of those regions. Forest fires will be one of the results, the great fires of this season will not be the last.

This will go beyond agriculture to what areas are viable to live in with large populations. Heinlein warned in the 50s that California was profoundly unnatural: it required vast water supplies and if they were disrupted, that could cause massive numbers of deaths. I fear large parts of India are also going to be destroyed by this, combined with rising heat. (In fact, leaving Island nations aside, India is one of the nations which will be hit hardest by climate change.)

Because we have also drained and polluted our aquifers, water is going to be a huge problem. I expect the combination of rainfall changes and aquifer destruction to devastate agriculture in many regions, including the US, China, and India.

Right now we produce more food than we need, globally, we just waste a ton of it and distribute it execrably, but that is going to change.

The just-in-time global delivery system is VERY fragile. You should have food and water to survive at least a couple weeks, and ideally a few months. Beans and rice is one option if you can also arrange something to cook with. This is cheap, and done properly you can live on it for a long time. And water, in case the water in your taps goes off or becomes undrinkable. There are other options, and the survivalist types have done the work, it’s just a question of doing the research and figuring out what is within your means. A couple weeks food and something to cook with isn’t that expensive.(In some places a pot and wood will do the job, but not all places.)

Water, in particular, requires some room to store. But properly stored food and water in a shed, basement or even jammed into the corner of a room could save your life. (You may also or instead wish to have water purification gear available, such as iodine.)

Just something to bear in mind.

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