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Aug. 20th, 2020 04:38 pmToday, I've been thinking about climate change. Here in California, it's hard not to think about it this week. Everything is on fire, again. I saw someone post on one of the local Facebook groups: "Hey all, its fire season. Time to get out your air purifiers." People are just treating this as if it is to be expected; this happens. And now, it does. It happens every year. But it didn't used to happen. Even the kids in middle school are old enough to remember the first year that fires really impacted us here in the Bay Area. (2016 I think.) It has happened every year since. I grew up here. This, literally, never happened during my childhood or young adulthood. Fires were never this bad; they never impacted places where lots of people lived. In the Bay Area, you might see a wildfire on the news, but it was removed and remote, not immediate and local. Five years. Five years to forget that this isn't "normal". Five years, and no one seems to remember that this is horrifying, terrifying, apocalyptic. Its just life. This is what climate change is going to look like. No, this is what climate change looks like. No "is going to". We're already there.
The Bay Area climate my son (age 7) knows is an entirely different climate than the one I (age 39) knew from my childhood. We live in about the same place; my parents still have the same house. But the "here" of my childhood is gone. Lost to the stupid ignorant belief that we can just keep doing what we're doing and everything will be just fine. It won't be and we can't.
I remember, maybe a year ago, I was reminded of this. Not by fires; what reminded me then was the water on the freeway. There's a spot on 101 in San Jose where the road dips below the water table. There are pumps, but they break. And the water table is getting higher. It got to the point where there was enough water in the northbound fast lane that you had to be careful when you hit it. And after a while, and several attempted fixes, people just adapted. You slowed down as you approached. Or moved over. They did eventually put in better pumps; it was one of the projects they did during the main COVID shutdown. But ten years ago, we'd have been appalled. "There's water on the road! That much! WTF?!" As sea level rises, we'll do that too. "Oh yeah, at high tide, this section gets a little wet. That's normal; its fine." "Don't go home that way--its a king tide tonight, the road will be scary." "Oh, that section is closed during high tide; you'll have to wait. Its fine." And the us of today would be horrified. But the us in 20 years doesn't even really think about it; its normal. That's what climate change will look like.
And this all sucks.
(Yes, about half of this is on FB)
The Bay Area climate my son (age 7) knows is an entirely different climate than the one I (age 39) knew from my childhood. We live in about the same place; my parents still have the same house. But the "here" of my childhood is gone. Lost to the stupid ignorant belief that we can just keep doing what we're doing and everything will be just fine. It won't be and we can't.
I remember, maybe a year ago, I was reminded of this. Not by fires; what reminded me then was the water on the freeway. There's a spot on 101 in San Jose where the road dips below the water table. There are pumps, but they break. And the water table is getting higher. It got to the point where there was enough water in the northbound fast lane that you had to be careful when you hit it. And after a while, and several attempted fixes, people just adapted. You slowed down as you approached. Or moved over. They did eventually put in better pumps; it was one of the projects they did during the main COVID shutdown. But ten years ago, we'd have been appalled. "There's water on the road! That much! WTF?!" As sea level rises, we'll do that too. "Oh yeah, at high tide, this section gets a little wet. That's normal; its fine." "Don't go home that way--its a king tide tonight, the road will be scary." "Oh, that section is closed during high tide; you'll have to wait. Its fine." And the us of today would be horrified. But the us in 20 years doesn't even really think about it; its normal. That's what climate change will look like.
And this all sucks.
(Yes, about half of this is on FB)
