After a summer where the Earth was on fire, but also flooded, and also ravaged by extreme drought, and also buffeted by storms of immense power, there is something happening out in East Asia that ought to be a clear signal of the horrors that await us in the coming years. A ravenously powerful storm known as Typhoon Mangkhut smashed through the Philippines this weekend, killing dozens before it made landfall in China. Known as a "super typhoon," Mangkhut spent Sunday blasting through Hong Kong and Shenzhen in a haunting exhibition of Mother Nature's savage potential. Someday, we will have to explain to our children how we watched all of this and did nothing.

Jen Zhu, a tech investor and entrepreneur, is in Hong Kong and compiling some of the most terrifying footage of the storm on Twitter. Her thread must be seen to be believed:

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Starting a thread of various videos today in HK and Shenzhen as the world’s strongest storm #TyphoonManghkut wiping our cities. (Videos are not mine but collected from messages doing the rounds w WhatsApp and WeChat) pic.twitter.com/FXU5ITrFqN — Jen Zhu (@jenzhuscott) September 16, 2018

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Someone’s apartment in the east side of HK pic.twitter.com/2LaVZm2RX1 — Jen Zhu (@jenzhuscott) September 16, 2018

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The storm ripped windows out of high-rise buildings in one of the world's most advanced cities. Skyscrapers swayed violently. A storm surge of up to 10 feet sent ocean water pouring into city streets—and, it appears, crashing through restaurant storefronts:

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The winds were ferocious. Here's what it looked like at street level:

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Here's what it looked like when someone tried to venture out in these conditions:

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And here's what it looked like as the gales tore down a construction crane:



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The crane, in particular, has been the subject of some truly haunting video. Another clip, captured from higher up in a skyscraper, is remarkable visually. But the sound of this storm is more unnerving still, as the most powerful gusts play a ghoulish tune on the windows in a soundtrack for the apocalypse:

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Here is a different angle of the crane came down. Hope nobody was hurt. Watch it with sound. We are still surrounded by this sound. #TyhoonMangkhut #HK pic.twitter.com/g3A35TmQOo — Jen Zhu (@jenzhuscott) September 16, 2018

Oh, and there was a tornado.

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Tornado in Yuen Long. Hope no one got hurt. Unclear the damage and where was the flash happened when the tornado passed. #TyphoonManghkut #HK pic.twitter.com/V0mardJlE8 — Jen Zhu (@jenzhuscott) September 16, 2018

Of course, there's another storm raging on the other side of the world. Hurricane Florence is battering the East Coast of North America, dumping more than 30 inches of rain in some areas. That's led to flash flooding and major river flooding over a "significant portion" of North and South Carolina, as well as at least 16 fatalities. In this, there's a tale of two storms. (A typhoon is the same kind of storm system as a hurricane, just one that forms in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic.) Florence, like Hurricane Harvey last year, is doing its damage with water. Mangkhut is wreaking destruction primarily with the force of its winds.

While scientists cautioned during last year's monster hurricane season that they need more data before confirming a trend that may be linked to climate change, an AP report found that "no 30-year period in history has seen this many major hurricanes, this many days of those whoppers spinning in the Atlantic, or this much overall energy generated by those powerful storms." Most scientists expect to see stronger storms with higher levels of rainfall as ocean temperatures rise.

Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb said it would be “foolish” for policymakers to ignore the data. “We may not have as much data as we would like, but we have enough to aggressively invest in a variety of defenses for coastal communities,” she said in an email. “We face a triple threat of rising seas, stronger winds and literally off-the-charts rainfall totals.”

From 1988-2017, there were 48 percent more major hurricanes per year than in the previous 30-year window. The storms lasted 65 percent longer, at an average of 7.2 days. Their Accumulated Cyclone Energy—a measure of wind speed and storm duration to gauge hurricane power—was 41 percent higher. The question is whether things are just worse than 30 years ago, or worse than 30 years before that, too. That's tougher to say for sure, because storms may have been undercounted in the early part of the 20th century.

“There’s no question that the storms are stronger than they were 30 years ago,” said NOAA climate and hurricane scientist James Kossin. “The questions are if you go back a little further if that’s what you’ll find. We do know for sure that things have increased a hell of a lot since 1970.”

This is not the first storm season we've been forced to wonder what larger forces are in play. It's not the first sign that extreme conditions of many varieties—storms, wildfires, droughts, floods—appear to be getting more extreme. The question now is only how much of a historical anomaly our new normal may be.

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An office tower in Hung Hom. As I’m posting my own building is moving. The storm is screaming outside. I’m never this terrified. Hope everyone stay safe. 🙏🌏 #TyphoonManghkut #HK pic.twitter.com/fHkFpoqScD — Jen Zhu (@jenzhuscott) September 16, 2018

But while firefighters battle giant blazes out West and emergency services respond to catastrophic flooding out East, the United States remains the only country in the world that refuses to participate in the Paris climate agreement. We have a president who has said climate change is a hoax cooked up by the Chinese, and whose discussions about clean energy are almost exclusively limited to complaining about windmills. His press secretary refuses to answer whether she—or, we can safely say, the administration—subscribes to the scientific consensus that climate change is real and man-made. And all the while, we spend much of our time discussing porn-star payoffs, or The National Debt, or even, yes, Supreme Court nominations.

It will all look awfully silly in a decade or two, but no one will be laughing. Savagely powerful storms are just one thing on the menu. The ecosystems in many of the world's oceans are collapsing, as "bleaching" due to rising temperatures causes coral reefs to fail. There is ample reason to believe we have entered the planet's sixth mass extinction event. Rising sea levels, a process which may accelerate due to dangerous feedback loops, will not just endanger coastal cities. Bangladesh is a nation of 163 million people, huge swathes of which are at or near sea level. These will be just a portion of the millions of climate refugees set to travel huge distances in search of safety, overwhelming national governments and the international community in a migration event that will dwarf the Syrian refugee crisis. Soon enough, we will enter the era of the Water Wars.

And, in the end, you will still have to explain to your children—or yourself—how we all sat idly by as our only planet unequivocally announced its willingness to wipe us off its face if it meant ensuring its own survival. The planet, after all, has been here four-and-a-half billion years. Modern humans have been here around 200,000. Which do you think will stick around longer if we put it to the test?

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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