When it comes to summer recreation, it looks like we’re going to spend more time indoors and less time doing the things we were used to doing — when we wanted to do them — from May through September. Climate change has made it so.
Of course, the current U.S. government says there’s no such thing as climate change. The Trump administration has conducted a purge of references to the dreaded term on federal websites. The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday revoked all the science behind the causes of global warming and took itself out of the climate fight as the fossil fuel industry cheered. To top it off, the Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill provides aggressive repeals of climate actions taken by previous administrations.
So, for the time being, we are cooked.
Climate scientists have been warning for years that we only have so much time — about a decade now — to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before rising temperatures cause even more destruction around the globe and make life more challenging.
And yet the political right laughs at those warnings and the president walks away from efforts to slow the climate clock.
Still, polling shows that most Americans believe climate change is underway and that human activity — mostly, the burning of fossil fuels — is the cause.
In denial or not, everyone feels the heat and, if they’re honest, they acknowledge that extremes in weather have affected them.
They’ve affected everybody.
They’ve killed some people. Heat-related deaths have been on the rise nationally over the last two decades; there have been more than 21,000 such deaths in the U.S. since 1999, according to a study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
This summer, Maryland health officials reported 19 heat-related deaths as of July 30, with the number of heat emergencies up significantly.
The summer is when global warming is most real to us, and so summer habits are the ones most likely to change or prompt the most caution.
Those who work in the sun — who do farm work, road work, lawn work, collect our trash — will face risks more frequently than earlier generations did. They should get hazardous duty pay and liberal leave.
How we play will also be affected.
Climate change is already forcing adjustments to summer recreation and how we spend our valuable free time.
Gardening never made sense in the high heat of midday. But climate change could render it impossible in all but the early morning or evening hours.
Same with golfing and biking and hiking and running, even taking the dog for a walk.
Fishing has become tougher in summer, and not just because of the oppressive heat. Fish that are caught and released for sport become highly stressed. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources suggests that summer anglers leave trout alone and go after warm-water species — the invasive blue catchfish and snakehead, for instance.
Studies have demonstrated that abnormally high air and water temperatures can harm Chesapeake rockfish. Maryland prohibits anglers from targeting stripers for two weeks, July 16 through July 31. But, given recent weather patterns, it’s hard to imagine conditions improving — for the fish and the angler — in August and September.
Football practices traditionally start in summer — the NFL first, then colleges and high schools. That probably won’t change for a while yet. But higher temperatures over longer periods will make outdoor practices more challenging. The extremes might even force a later start to the football season, though that would require, at the pro and collegiate levels, prioritizing human health over profits.
Two members of Congress from Maryland, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and Rep. Kweisi Mfume, are co-sponsors of a bill requiring school and university athletic programs to have heat-related emergency action plans (EAPs) that include the use of cold-water immersion equipment. The legislation is called the Jordan McNair Student Athlete Heat Fatality Prevention Act, named after the University of Maryland football player who died in 2018 after collapsing from heat stroke.
And it wasn’t even summer yet when McNair collapsed with a body temperature of 106 degrees F. It was late May.
“I think there has to be some standardization [to EAPs] to protect these kids,” Mfume said during a recent interview. “They’re all so very young, and at that age, people think you’re going to live forever. They are just trying to do all they can by exerting themselves as hard as they can to make a team and be successful.”
Mfume thinks he’ll get bipartisan support for the bill. “We can save lives,” he said. “This is something that Republicans can’t claim is anti-American or anti-Trump. This is pro-life in a very real way.”
As is battling climate change. You’d think the “pro-life party” would take it on instead of sounding retreat and renouncing any responsibility for the future.
Dan Rodricks’ column appears weekly. He can be reached at djrodricks or danrodricks.com
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it interesting that people are just not accepting the fact that random and influenced climate and weather change occurs. Climate change has existed since the creation of this planet about 4 Billion years ago. [That’s a 4 with 9 zeros, not 12 zeros, you know, like the $37 Trillion US Debt, but I digress.]
Since about 1850, when weather recording, not reporting, started, it would be fair to reason that no two days have ever experienced the exact same weather pattern anywhere on the 197 million squares miles of Earth’s surface.
The Earth has experienced around 5 Glacial Ice Ages during its short history; the Earth being about 1/3 as old as the Universe.
Rhetorical question: What made Glaciers grow and recede?
The fact of the matter is we are still in the grips of a warming Inter-Glacial period that began some 10,000-11,000 years ago; the time when a 1 MILE THICK glacial sheet of ice was sitting over us; it would take a full minute to drive that distance at 60 mph; pretty thick.
Funny thing, though, that Glacier started to recede without any influence of industrialized mankind. No cars, trucks, trains, planes, smoke stack industries, or lawn and garden equipment. And that receding happened just like all the other glaciers before it. Go figure!
The fascinating thing, as everyone knows, is that when Glaciers grow, sea and ocean levels drop, being the place where Glaciers get their water to form ice.
Conversely, when Glaciers recede, sea and ocean levels rise. The water goes back from where it came.
Maybe it is with common sense, logic and an acute sense for the obvious here, but folks who develop water front properties, or build cities at or below sea level, should check the prevailing climate activity before they build. You know, like where Glaciers are in their life-cycle.
Seems to me that some people want to alter the future course of weather; ‘if we’re in the throes of an Inter-Glacial warming period, with resulting sea and ocean levels rising, and the things we were stupid enough to construct and build are going to be jeopardized, well then, let’s just change the course of future weather, why don’t we.’ GMO Weather!
Hmm! Wonder what they’re going to do when, not if, but when the next Glacial Ice Age starts? Reverse EPA regulations, bring back internal combustion engines?
Oh. Wait. That may be happening.
A lot of things influence climate and weather and bring about climate change:
* Volcanoes – sure have been a few active ones lately, like the one that just erupted in Russia, and ever since the day this third rock from the Sun was created, polluting the atmosphere with noxious gases; Methane, Sulfur Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide, and oh yea, ash;
* Wild Fires – dispersing intense heat, Carbon Monoxide, Carbon Dioxide and Ash into the atmosphere. A good example is the Ash recently deposited here in Maryland from California and Canada wild fires.
* Changes in the Sun – which have the most direct influence in our day-to-day weather changes; did you know the earth is getting closer to the Sun?
* Big Rocks Hitting the Earth – 65 million years ago one hit the earth that created a huge weather change that killed off all the Dinosaurs;
* Pollution – from cars, trucks, trains, planes, lawn and garden equipment, and unfiltered smoke stack industries, especially in India and China.
Thinking back to my earth science classes of yesteryear, I remember the process of photosynthesis; green plants absorb Carbon Dioxide [CO2] and give off Oxygen. That’s a good thing, as the air we breathe is made up of about only 21% Oxygen, 78% Nitrogen, and 1% other gases, like CO2, CO, Methane, Helium, Argon, Sulfur Dioxide to name a few. And our bodies like the Big “O”, Oxygen. The great thing is the rate of photosynthesis is in direct correlation to the amount of CO2 in the air. How about that, a process of Mother Nature balancing things out.
Climate and weather change, the life-cycle of planet earth, here forever.
Mike Waal
Chestertown, MD