Global warming is often described as an abstract, distant issue. For any of us who grew up in Wisconsin in the 1980's, it is far from that. In 1988, as the news was breaking of the dire environmental threat of global warming, even worse than the hole in the ozone layer,the worst drought since the Dust Bowl era struck. It decimated our lovely Wisconsin summer, the pay off for enduring frigid Arctic winters, and was the starting gun on what would become a painful, dry decade. For an area that's home to most of the planet's fresh water, where the lakes are both Great and plentiful, it was scary stuff. I remember that the fire of my environmental activism was further enflamed by those long hot summers.
Global warming is often described as an abstract, distant issue. For any of us who grew up in Wisconsin in the 1980's, it is far from that. In 1988, as the news was breaking of the dire environmental threat of global warming, even worse than the hole in the ozone layer,the worst drought since the Dust Bowl era struck. It decimated our lovely Wisconsin summer, the pay off for enduring frigid Arctic winters, and was the starting gun on what would become a painful, dry decade. For an area that's home to most of the planet's fresh water, where the lakes are both Great and plentiful, it was scary stuff. I remember that the fire of my environmental activism was further enflamed by those long hot summers.
The fipside of the drought was floods further down the Mississippi, ravaging the lovely river communities that inspired my boyhood Huck Finn fantasies. They were everywhere, even in comics like Doonesbury's "The Washed-out Bridges of Madison County." Again, it seemed obvious to everyone that these were not normal floods, that something extraordinary and horrible was occurring.
But now I find that what seemed completely obvious to me as a teenager is a taboo subject. I wish I could tell you that I was uniquely perceptive, but I wasn't. Like everyone, I was influenced by the news coverage. Even with my parents running a green business, I needed someone to make that link explicit for me, so I could see how obvious it was. I am grateful to the journalists of that time for doing so. And that is the role of good journalism and science: to connect what we are experiencing in our every day lives to deeper scientific truths. And as floods come again to the MIdwest, this time our reporting has fallen down, according to Media Matters.
"Indeed, climate change has been almost entirely absent from national and local reporting on the floods. Only one of 74 television segments mentioned climate change, on CBS News. ABC, NBC and CNN never mentioned the connection."
Environmental Action rallied with groups like Forecast the Factsto make sure that Hurricane Sandy's relationship to climate change was discussed. Because while we fight for making sure catastrophic weather is less likely, we also need to recover what was once common knowledge: that global warming is here and now: in floods, in droughts, in faraway lands and our own childhood homes.
Finally, to recapture the feeling of the time, here's my favorite song from 1991, PJ Harvey's Dry.