Americans are seeing striking changes in not just weather but patterns of weather. We are experiencing more frequent extreme weather events. The tornadoes that swept across Texas yesterday were just the most recent example.
Why Is The Heartland Of America Being Ripped To Shreds By Gigantic Tornadoes That Are Becoming More Frequent And More Powerful?
By Michael Snyder
What in the world is going on in the heartland of America? Spring has barely even begun and we are seeing communities all over America being ripped to shreds by gigantic tornadoes. A lot of meteorologists claimed that the nightmarish tornado season of 2011 was an "anomaly", but 2012 is shaping up to be just as bad or even worse.
Up to this point in 2012, at least 57 people have been killed by tornadoes across the country. Thousands more have been injured and countless homes have been reduced to splinters. In fact, there have been a couple of small towns that have been essentially wiped off the map by giant tornadoes.
What we are witnessing is not normal. Prior to the horrific tornadoes that we saw on Tuesday, there had been 326 tornadoes in the United States so far in 2011. That is about twice as many as usual for this time of the year.
Overall, the United States only sees about 1,200 tornadoes for the entire year usually. The busiest time of the year for tornadoes is still a way off, and we are on pace for a truly historic year.
But it is not just the number of tornadoes that is the problem. Many of these tornadoes are immensely powerful.
Many of the states in Tornado Alley are staunchly Republican.
Of course the Republican Party (long a captive of Big Oil) rejects the science on Climate Change.
How much longer can the Republican party afford to deny the empirical reality that residents of the American Heartland are experiencing? I think the question isn't whether voters in Tornado Alley come to the realization the that the GOP is feeding them Big Oil's lies, but when.
For the GOP to do a 180 degree turn on Climate Change would require a revolt against Big Oil's dominance inside the GOP, and that will only happen when it becomes a political necessity.
Also see: New study in Nature links Climate Change to recent increase in extreme weather events