CLIMATE CHANGE TURNS LETHAL

Daily newscasts have become powerfully redundant. Observers have to strain to ignore the impression that the world is on the cusp of rapidly disintegrating. Southern Europe, Northern and Western U.S. and Southern Canada are suffering from uncontrolled wildfires. This year alone, fire fighters have already responded to 48,000 wildfires that have burned more than 6.5 million acres across the country. In January, wildfires killed at least 31 people, destroyed more than 18,000 homes and structures, and burned more than 57,000 acres of land. During the past two decades the frequency and intensity of the most extreme wildfires more than doubled. By mid 2025 floods in Texas killed 137, with 117 of its inhabitants losing their life in Kerr County alone. Storms dumped an amount of water greater than the daily flow of Niagara Falls in just a few hours, raising the Guadalupe River by more than 20 feet. Extreme weather is becoming the new normal. Rising global temperatures add more energy and moisture to the atmosphere, turning once rare climatic events into frequent severe realities. Hurricanes are growing more powerful as global temperatures rise because these storm systems draw their energy from warm ocean water. Wildfires burn longer and wider, growing in size, ferocity and speed. Extremely hot temperatures are constantly rising. July this year logged the highest temperatures ever recorded in the U.S. Temperatures in Death Valley even reached 130 degrees in 2020 and 2021. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 175,000 people die from heat related causes each year. The European Mortality Monitoring Network recorded around 16,000 excess deaths across multiple European countries in a single week. And the horrific statistics continue their destructive paths. Governments are facing a significant increase in loss of life, coupled with a tremendous drain on financial resources. Between 97% and 99% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that human activity is causing global climate change. Multiple peer reviewed studies examining scientific literature and direct surveys confirm this overwhelmingly global consensus. The World Health Organization estimates that between 2030 and 2050 climate change will result in 250,000 additional deaths each year from factors like heat stress, malnutrition and malaria. However, recent attribution research actually suggests that historical warming may have already killed millions, and that future projections run significantly higher. The World Economic Forum projects an additional 14.5 million deaths worldwide by 2050, driven directly by climate induced health crises, with flooding and droughts acting as primary triggers. The approximate cost related to damages from weather and climate disasters in the U.S. between 1980 and 2025 will reach $2.95 trillion - a burden our government is more than likely not ready for. Being unprepared to cope with predictable future disasters is not insignificantly influenced by an unhealthy skepticism of core climate science exhibited by a significant segment of our population. Roughly 35-40% are global warming skeptics, 14-15% of U.S. general public completely deny that global warming or climate change is happening, while 22-28% acknowledge that the planet is warming but reject that it is primarily due to human activity. (Center for Climate Change Communication - July 2025). The issue at stake is not science - the evidence is omnipresent - it is politics. The upper echelon of our government is deliberately spreading scientifically unsupported misinformation, presumably to protect the economic well being of stakeholders. Consequently, many efforts to remedy the predicted consequences will prove to be ineffective. In March of 2020,the United Nations published a list of myth busters about climate change. It is useful to reiterate these: 1. "Climate has always changed - this is natural." While earth's climate changed in the past, current warming happens in decades, instead of thousands of years. 2. "Scientists do not agree on global warming." Over 97% of climate scientists agree that human activities are heating the planet. 3. "Cold weather and snow disprove global warming." Weather is short term local conditions. Climate is long term average. 4. "Carbon dioxide is plant food, so more is good." Plants need CO2, but excess emissions trap heat and surpass what global plant life can absorb. 5. "The sun causes the earth to warm." Solar output shows minor cyclical changes that do not match the rapid temperature spike since the 1800s. 6. "A small temperature rise is harmless." Even a 1 to 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) global change shifts weather systems, melts icecaps, and raises sea levels dangerously. 7. "Renewable energy is too expensive." Wind and solar power cost the same or less than fossil fuels in most of the world. 8. "Climate models are not reliable." Computer models accurately predict temperature trends and match decades of observations. 9. "Animals and plants can just adapt." Rapid habit changes outpace the survival and migration speed of many species, causing extinction. 10. "Too late to do anything, so why try?" Every fraction of a degree reduces damage. Cutting emissions now still protects future stability. As long as the veracity of climate change continues to remain disputable among stakeholders, chances are that governments will have difficulty reacting pro-actively to future disasters. British scientist Stephen Hawking, because he feared that humanity might not reverse environmental damage in time, published an unusual suggestion. He advocated for space exploration and colonizing other planets as an insurance policy for the human race. Theo Wierdsma