The Unbearable Summer

… This has been the West’s summer of extremes. In every direction, the consequences of climate change across the region have become more tangible, immediate, inescapable. “It feels like the first inkling of an apocalyptic movie,” Jay Inslee, the Washington governor and a longtime leader on climate issues, told me recently. “People can usually deal with one [threat], maybe two, but this comes to you from every direction.”

Heat, drought, floods, and especially the lengthening and intensifying wildfire season, have compelled the West to reckon with climate change more explicitly than probably any other region in America. But this summer’s convergence of extreme events proves that climate change isn’t a future threat; it’s here. Scientists, political leaders, and environmentalists all broadly recognize that extremes and unpleasant surprises—events that once seemed impossible—will become more commonplace. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic


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