There’s an old adage we’ve all heard: “If you don’t like the weather in Michigan, wait a little bit. It will change.”
That doesn’t seem very funny anymore.
The severe swings in May temperatures caused so many disruptions in people’s lives across Michigan that it appears we’re entering a stage where “wild weather” is an oxymoron. And it’s moronic to think that this instability is just a passing phase, a brief anomaly.
Personally, I have never in my life turned on the heat and air conditioning in my house within a single 24-hour period. In late May, I did it twice.
Beyond the 30-degree swings in temperature that occurred daily, and the switch from snow flurries to July-like heat in a matter of days, there’s a slightly longer view that is disturbing. According to the official records, we experienced warmer weather on Jan. 11-13 than we did on May 11-13. Two-thirds of the days in January saw temps above freezing.
What if we don’t have real Michigan winters anymore? How much of an impact would that have on the tourism industry and seasonal economy of “Pure Michigan?”
What if the Mitten State weather starts to replicate conditions in Miami? What kind of dramatic impact would that have on Michigan agriculture and outdoor businesses? Sounds far-fetched?
Well, from May 15-31, our tri-county temperatures roughly matched – or sometimes exceeded – those in Miami on nine separate days. Amazingly, the humidity (in May, mind you) was nearly as stifling as that routinely experienced this time of year in Florida.
Mark Twain had his own adage: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”
Is it time we start doing something about the weather, about climate change? We need a national discussion on the economic damage and death and destruction that our crazy climate accumulates across the nation.
More to the point: Is it unreasonable to pay a little more for gasoline and electricity through a carbon tax to possibly reverse this trend?
Of course, in Michigan, when we complain about stifling heat and violent storms that knock down trees and power lines, that is no comparison to the frightening destruction that’s taking place daily in the Plains and Upper Midwest.
When we gripe, we sound like those Southern folks who grumble about the havoc imposed on commuters when their city is hit with a dusting of snow, while deadly blizzards are simultaneously pounding the Midwest and Northeast.
Michigan has had it easy compared to the rest of the nation’s havoc: hundreds of record high temperatures, and unprecedented floods, hurricanes, snowstorms, hail storms, droughts and wildfires. Consider this: In mid-May, the thermometer hit 98 degrees in the Minnesota mid-section. We’ve even experienced earthquakes in the strangest places.
Imagine the impact all these killer storms will have on insurance costs for homes, autos, businesses and farms. Food prices and availability will be affected. Consider the ripple effects each time our nation’s highways, airports and rail systems are disrupted. What is the effect on businesses when even a relatively minor disturbance such as a massive power outage occurs?
If the current patterns keep up, FEMA may emerge as the federal government’s largest, most expensive department.
While the nation tries to comprehend the recent wave of powerful twisters, Hurricane season is next. Will we experience another Sandy or Katrina? Let’s not forget that June is historically second only to May as the height of tornado season.
Yet, we now experience tornadoes in February; tornadoes in western Massachusetts; we’ve even seen a tornado in New York City. There is no longer a “tornado alley” where people take their chances when they establish roots.
The city of Moore, Okl., which on May 20 was uprooted unlike any tornado-ravaged town since, well, since Joplin, Mo., in 2011 when a tornado killed 158 people and inflicted $2.8 billion in damage, is not ringed by a bulls-eye.
True, just a day prior to the monster, mile-wide twister that killed 23, two people died in Moore at the hands of a weaker tornado. And Moore experienced the most powerful tornado known to the world in 1999. But in the several decades prior to that, going back to the 1950s, the combined tornado death toll in the town was two.
On Friday, about two dozen twisters were reported in a “danger zone” that stretched through Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois – an area with a population of 3 million. We’re lucky, we’re told, that only nine deaths and 71 injuries resulted.
When does our luck run out?
Meteorologists say that the level of “fuel” for powerful tornadoes – the atmospheric collisions between cold air and warm, moist air in the jet stream – has been off the charts in the Plains in the past two weeks.
That may become an annual pattern. The weather of the past month may never be tied directly to climate change or greenhouse gases or carbon emissions. But, as the song says: “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.”
Beyond the financial hardships, consider how many people have been emotionally devastated by these storms. How many permanent disabilities have resulted? Imagine the mental health issues that all those young students who were buried beneath the rubble in Moore will face. The dark, deadly skies just keep coming.
I realize that no single storm or multi-month weather pattern necessarily signals the onset of permanent climate disruptions. But surely it’s time for our political leaders to step up.
Perhaps the people of Oklahoma, one of the reddest of the Red States, can lead the effort to debunk the talk of a climate change “hoax” and some of the wacky ideas on the Internet that insist volcanoes are responsible for global warming.
So far, here is Congress’ answer: When they’re not delaying disaster assistance they are imposing unpaid furlough days on the federal employees at the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center -- in the middle of tornado and hurricane season.
On Capitol Hill, a tax on carbon emissions was shelved long ago though it has been called “one of the best ideas in Washington almost no one in Congress will talk about.”
Estimates indicate that a $20-per-ton tax on carbon dioxide emissions, which would raise $1.2 trillion over a decade to reduce the federal deficit or enhance green-energy tax breaks, would boost gasoline prices by 20 cents per gallon – a fairly common practice already imposed by the oil companies -- and increase monthly electric bills by about $12. A more significant effort to cut greenhouse gases would cost more but could be phased in over a few years.
Is that too high of a price to pay? Maybe we should simply label it as a penny-wise environmental maintenance expense.
After all: We can pay now, or we can pay later.
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