This confirms what many of us have long thought. That none of us will remain unscathed by Climate Change.
Global warming dials up our risks, UN report says
Global warming is driving humanity toward a whole new level of many risks, a United Nations scientific panel reports, warning that the wild climate ride has only just begun.
"Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change," Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri said in a Monday news conference.
Twenty-first century disasters such as killer heat waves in Europe, wildfires in the United States, droughts in Australia and deadly flooding in Mozambique, Thailand and Pakistan highlight how vulnerable humanity is to extreme weather, says a massive new report from a Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists released early Monday.
As the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra Pachauri is in a position to know what he's talking about here. But dire official pronouncements like this has failed to pierce the impervious ignorance of many Americans on this issue. I've seen the devastation in the aftermath of of a Super Typhoon striking the Philippines in recent months so I know how drastic these changes in climate can be.
The past two months rainfall here in the Pacific Northwest has been more than twice its normal levels. March broke the all time record for rainfall, and in the rainy Northwest in March that's saying something. All that rain almost certainly contributed to the massive mudslide in Oso Washington about 40 miles East of here. That resulted in 21 confirmed deaths so far with 30 people still missing. Most of those 30 people most likely are buried too deeply for the search dogs to find.
I know this area well. I've done canoe trips on the Stilly, and a favorite hiking spot of mine is at the Bolder River Wilderness. The trailhead is about two miles from the site of the slide. This tragedy shows how close to home Climate Change can hit.