Disaster is blowin’ in the wind

‘Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), blasted Senate Democrats for holding 10 hearings on climate change instead of discussing the United States rising debt.” He really said it.

The senator should talk to the governor of Hawaii. Here’s a headline in early August: “At least 55 dead as fires ravage Maui; Hawaii governor warns climate change is here.” The death toll is now 111.

Catastrophic wildfires in California, more and more severe hurricanes and flooding aren’t caused by unbalanced budgets. Global warming and higher temperatures are not part of a Democratic plot to ignore the senator.

If we do nothing about our dependence on fossil fuel, the earth will not end tomorrow, but life challenging conditions would inevitably increase. I see a Grassley descendant getting up from the last pushups on earth and saying, “At least we balanced the budget.” It is not clear if he will be in the U.S. Senate, but he will be a conservative Republican. Our current Grassley, a man who does things by the numbers, has missed the cause and effect of climate change and possible helpful action.

Here is what scientists say. “The evidence for rapid climate change is compelling: global temperature rising, the oceans are getting warmer, the ice sheets are shrinking, glaciers are retreating, snow cover is decreasing, sea level is rising, Artic Sea ice is declining. Extreme events are increasing in frequency.”

They conclude, ”Eventually human beings will go extinct. At the most wildly optimistic estimate, our species will last perhaps another billion years but end when the expanding envelope of the sun swells outward and heats the planet to a Venus-like state.”

I haven’t been to Venus lately, but there is a laboratory here on our planet. It is called outside. Our farmers can soon look forward to alternate crops of mud and dust replacing soybeans or corn. The only thing knee high by the Fourth of July will be misery.

Here’s more from the scientists.

“Changes in rainfall patterns, deforestation, and overgrazing have detrimental and often irreparable effects on agriculture. Farmers are struggling to keep their animals healthy in drier, more extreme conditions. Lack of water and warmer temperatures make it harder for crops to grow, and soil is drying to dust.”

If it is eons before that is the weather in our world, we can shrug and go on with our lives. But other scientists estimate that about a decade is all we have before greenhouse gases and climate changes overwhelm. Chuck Grassley will be gone from the Senate, but evidence of his focus on numbers will be with us a lot longer.

It’s hard to understand why anyone, Republican or Democrat, would not see that climate change is a universal threat that can’t be measured by the number of committee meetings.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.