When an unseasonably warm Chicago day comes along in November, it’s unfortunately accompanied by a sense of foreboding these days.
We can’t help wondering how much hotter November afternoons will get in future years and how it will change the region’s environment.
But that’s where we are, now that scientists are telling us the last 12 months have been the hottest since recordkeeping began in the 1800s. Data also indicated last month was the warmest October in that same time period. That pushes the world closer to the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in temperatures that could lead to irreversible ecological damage.
In that context, an unseasonably warm day no longer feels quite as much as something to celebrate. Yes, it’s nice out, but the climate is shifting.
An analysis by scientists at the nonprofit research group Climate Central found temperatures in the past 12 months were probably the hottest they have been in 125,000 years. That was back during the Eemian interglacial period, a time of superstorms and ocean levels 30 feet higher than they are today.
The rate of warming over the last 12 months is unprecedented since the end of the last Ice Age. Over that 12-month period, a quarter of the Earth’s population faced dangerous levels of heat.
Another study, published by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported 2023 is “virtually certain” to be the hottest year in recorded history.
Melting glaciers, rising seas
And now, researchers tell us, Greenland’s glaciers and ice shelves are melting faster than they were in the last century. If all of Greenland’s ice melts, which would take a long time, sea levels would rise about 23 feet, creating a catastrophe for islands and coastal areas.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects sea levels, on average along the contiguous U.S., to rise as much as 10 to 12 inches from 2020 to 2050, and the rate of increase is accelerating. Compare that with former President Donald Trump’s nonsensical claim in April that “the ocean will rise by 1/100th of an inch over the next 350 years.”
A study published last Tuesday in Nature Communications reported Greenland’s glaciers have lost more than 35% of their total volume since 1978. On Friday, Australian officials offered some residents of the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu to move to Australia each year to escape rising sea levels.
And yet what has the U.S. House Republican majority been up to in the face of this threat? Trying to gut programs meant to fight global warming, such as home electrification projects, rebates for electric appliances, and clean energy and energy efficiency projects.
They also want to defund the American Climate Corps, a project this page has supported. The new corps, modeled after the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, would train young people to build green projects around the country, such as maintaining and restoring parks, trails and natural areas.
The House also elected as speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who chalks up climate change to “natural cycles.” That doesn’t sound like someone who is poised to help lead the charge to save the planet. Or assist the people who suffered through the record five-year increase in the cost of weather and climate disasters between 2018 and 2022, according to a Sept. 29 Treasury report.
The Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars and other issues may have pushed climate change toward the back burner in many people’s eyes. But climate change remains a huge threat to our civilization. The Chicago area already is experiencing heat waves and flooding made worse by global warming. Lake Michigan water levels have become more unpredictable.
Illinois has enacted some climate reforms, such as the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. But lawmakers need to get busy on doing more, such as fully implementing CEJA and boosting nature-based climate solutions. Chicago can do more to decarbonize. And government at every level should be focusing on improving the resiliency that will be needed as climate change causes more severe weather events.
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