Climate change: Coming soon to an area near you
While he was strategizing for Harris Wofford’s underdog U.S. Senate campaign in 1991, James Carville famously observed that between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, you have Alabama.
Little did Carville realize almost a quarter-century ago that the vast swatch of territory at the center of Pennsylvania could end up like Alabama in more ways than its culture and mores. It could eventually have a climate akin to the sweaty, sweltering South.
Oh, it will take a while to get there. Before we end up like Alabama, though, we will first have a climate like that currently experienced by the residents of Washington, D.C., or Richmond, Va. That is expected to happen by 2050 or so if climate change continues unabated. That’s not all that far off. Anyone who has endured the humid, sunburned death march that comes with being a tourist in our nation’s capital in July or August will not greet that possibility with unalloyed joy.
The effect climate change will have on Pennsylvania will, however, amount to more than mere discomfort every once in a while. It’s tempting to believe that climate change will affect somebody else in some far-off locale – its destabilizing repurcussions will most certainly be felt most severely in poor places like Bangladesh and East Africa, while some Pacific islands will be all but submerged as a result of it. But rising global temperatures, if allowed to continue unabated, will damage Pennsylvania’s air and water, increase the likelihood of floods and other extreme weather events and basically kill off winter-weather tourism and recreation in the commonwealth.
The 2015 Pennsylvania Climate Impact Assessment Update, recently unveiled by Penn State University, offers a sobering statistic: In the last 110 years, Pennsylvania became almost 2 degrees warmer. It is believed that we now will be adding an additional degree of warmth as each decade goes by. That is an acceleration that can’t be ignored or wished away. As James Shortle, the director of the Environment and Natural Resources Institute at Penn State, pointed out, “The scientific data is clear: climate change is happening, and there will be impacts in Pennsylvania. The effects of climate change will be felt across all parts of Pennsylvania – agriculture, human health, water quality, energy…”
To wit, along with all the maladies associated with dirty air, like lung and heart disease, increased temperatures will lengthen the misery of allergy seasons, increase the severity of asthma and cause the number of insect-borne diseases to spike. Then, homes and businesses could be endangered as a result of increased flood risks, and energy consumption will climb in Pennsylvania’s summers as air-conditioner use goes up.
We shouldn’t resign ourselves to this fate. And there are encouraging signs that we won’t. Officials in Pennsylvania and in other states are looking at ways they can comply with the Clean Power Plan announced by the Obama administration two months ago in an effort to reduce the United States’ carbon emissions. It is widely hoped forceful action by America will spur other polluters to action. And Pope Francis, who commands the respect of people around the world and across the political spectrum, has been a persistent advocate for action on the climate.
Carol Bocetti, an assistant professor at California University of Pennsylvania, recently told the Observer-Reporter‘s Karen Mansfield, “I’m confident that we’re starting to see enough evidence that (climate change) is undeniable. A lot of naysayers who are absolutely consciously peddling doubt will end up like those in the tobacco industry, which got to the point where the evidence was overwhelming and they could no longer deny the dangers of tobacco. I’m hopeful.”
Let’s hope she’s right.