Movement Monday

At 23, I’ve lived with climate change my whole life. However, last week was one that stood out for defining moments in this slippery slope of dangerous change. Here in Bozeman, MT, the weather kept inching hotter and drier, and so I sweated it out, or retreated to a friend’s basement apartment, to read the news coming in from frontlines across the world. 

Last week alone we saw:

The Pacific Northwest Heat Dome. This was more than just feeling a little hot. Hot weather such as that seen across the Pacific Northwest last week, is nothing short of deadly. The record-smashing temperatures, often well-over 100 degrees, were particularly hard, because society in that climate is not set up to handle it. Many lack air-conditioning. Infrastructure was literally melting in Portland.

Canadian Firestorms. The same heat dome that hit the Pacific Northwest of the United States trapped blazing hot air in Western Canada as well. This only makes wildfires more likely. Last week, as wildfires ignited across Western Canada, so much smoke was released from these fires that it coalesced into ‘pyrocumulonimbous’ clouds. In other words, the wildfires caused their own storm system, which subsequently released over 100,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in about 15 hours. 

Hurricane Elsa. Last week the first hurricane of the Atlantic season developed. While not record-breaking, this is far ahead of the average date of August 10th. Downgraded to a tropical storm (though it could re-develop), it is now heading toward Florida.

Gulf on Fire. A Petroléos Mexicanos (Pemex) pipeline burst, and the ocean in the Gulf of Mexico lit on fire. While it has since been put out, footage captured what should be an impossible situation.