Global warming is not only happening, but it’s also happening at an alarming rate. Extreme weather events are becoming more normalized in our daily lives, making it harder to ignore the impacts of climate change. New York City, once seen as a fortress against nature, is now feeling the effects.
A month ago, when orange skies covered New York, it was a wake-up call. This climate horror was no longer confined to the American West; it had spread to the East Coast. The air quality plummeted, but once it improved, people went back to their routines, content with the sky being just smoggy.
Recently, heavy rains caused flooding in the Hudson Valley. New Yorkers watched in horror, but also with a false sense of relief. We convinced ourselves that the flooding was happening “upstate,” even though it was only a few miles away. We were so close to experiencing a disaster ourselves, yet we downplayed the severity.
Disasters always seem far away until they’re right on our doorstep. We find comfort in the fact that they’re happening elsewhere, but that mindset is changing as these events occur closer and closer to home. New Yorkers found solace in the fact that a local storm system spared the city, while Vermont bore the brunt of the flooding.
Unfortunately, these extreme events are becoming the new normal. Global average temperatures are breaking records every day, and climate-fueled disasters are happening more frequently. There were terrifying floods in India, Japan, and Spain, while heatwaves ravaged Texas, Mexico, and Miami. Death Valley in California may reach record-breaking temperatures this week, and El Paso has been experiencing relentless heat.
The oceans are also affected by climate change. The water off the coast of Florida and Puerto Rico reached dangerously high temperatures. Coral bleaching is expected to occur across the entire Caribbean, threatening marine life. Marine heat wave conditions are becoming more widespread, affecting 50 percent of the world’s oceans this summer.
Canada is experiencing unprecedented wildfires, surpassing previous records. The smoke has traveled to Europe, but North America has not been spared from the impacts of these fires either.
Despite all these events, we seem to have moved on. We quickly adapt and accept these disasters as the new normal. A study suggests that within two years, we may learn to accept weather extremes as normal, a grim reality of adapting to disaster.
Last year, deadly heatwaves struck India and Pakistan, causing widespread devastation. This year, similar heatwaves occurred, but received less media attention in the West. Europe experienced a significant increase in deaths due to heat, yet it went largely unnoticed.
What’s most striking about this summer is how often extreme events are now being considered normal and predicted by climate scientists. The record-breaking ocean temperatures, which were initially alarming, were ultimately attributed to climate change. It’s a sobering reminder that we will continue to experience unprecedented events, even though they were predicted.
In the end, the reality of climate change is not reassuring. We will face more frequent encounters with extreme events, many of which were predicted but ignored. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny that these events can happen right in our own backyard.
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