The Earth is warning us of the consequences of continued climate inaction. Will we listen?

Con­se­quences of cli­mate dam­age have hit home this spring, from waters of the Atlantic Ocean to bore­al forests of Alber­ta to the Mar­i­ana Islands of the Pacif­ic Ocean. As our politi­cians fid­dle with man­u­fac­tured issues, the Earth burns.

Con­sid­er the events of the past three weeks.

On Thurs­day, the Nation­al Ocean­ic and Atmos­pher­ic Admin­is­tra­tion (NOAA) released fig­ures that ocean tem­per­a­tures in May were the high­est ever record­ed. Of par­tic­u­lar note, the Atlantic was sev­en degrees (Fahren­heit) warmer than nor­mal off the Cape Verde Islands, where trop­i­cal storms form.

NOAA announced its find­ings on the day that Cyclone Bipar­joy – Bipar­joy means “dis­as­ter” in the Bangla lan­guage – was mak­ing land­fall in south­ern India. A total of 170,000 peo­ple in India and Pak­istan were evac­u­at­ed in advance of the storm.

A “super typhoon” in the Pacif­ic, Typhoon Mawar, hit the Mar­i­ana Islands with 150 mile per hours in late May, its eye pass­ing just north of Guam. Warm­ing tem­per­a­tures in the Gulf of Mex­i­co raise the prospect of hur­ri­canes that inten­si­fy as they approach the coasts of Flori­da and oth­er Gulf states.

We are at the begin­ning of an Amer­i­can pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, in which three of the Repub­li­can can­di­dates come from Flori­da. You would think the per­ils of a warm­ing plan­et would be on their minds. Think again.

Gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis is tout­ing his “Don’t say gay!” ban on dis­cus­sion of sex­u­al­i­ty in pub­lic schools. Ex-Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is vow­ing to bar trans­gen­der stu­dents from bath­rooms of their choice.

Repub­li­can-run state leg­is­la­tures bor­der­ing the Gulf of Mex­i­co are rac­ing to adopt leg­is­la­tion lim­it­ing gen­der reas­sign­ment surgery.

I read, on a reg­u­lar basis, tweets from Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, R‑Washington, the cur­rent chair of the House Ener­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee. She rep­re­sents a dis­trict in East­ern Wash­ing­ton that has expe­ri­enced record heat and endured for­est and brush fires, one of which torched a town that she rep­re­sents in Congress.

Yet, CMR (through her staff) is out there cheer­lead­ing for a bill – nar­row­ly passed by the House – which sus­tains sub­si­dies and tax breaks for the oil and gas indus­try, while open­ing (and reopen­ing) pub­lic lands to oil drilling as well as coal min­ing. The leg­is­la­tion stands no chance of Sen­ate pas­sage, but Con­gress remains vir­tu­al­ly par­a­lyzed when it comes to reduc­ing pow­er plant emis­sions which are the largest con­trib­u­tor to pol­lu­tion in the atmosphere.

The right wing con­trolled U.S. Supreme Court, for its part, has blocked the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency from deploy­ing the Clean Air Act to lim­it pow­er plant pol­lu­tion, and has slapped a nar­row def­i­n­i­tion on wet­lands that evis­cer­ates appli­ca­tion of the Clean Water Act.

The Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act does rep­re­sent a break­through on clean ener­gy invest­ment: The ques­tion is whether it does enough and soon enough. We see warm ocean waters get­ting warmer. What of the cold places on plan­et Earth?

First, start with this sober­ing assess­ment from NASA: “Nine­ty per­cent of glob­al warm­ing is occur­ring in the ocean(s), caus­ing the waters’ inter­nal heat to increase since mod­ern records keep­ing began in 1955… The last ten years were the oceans’ warmest decade since at least the 1800s. The year 2022 was the ocean’s warmest record­ed year and saw the high­est glob­al sea level.”

What does that mean? Accord­ing to a new study pub­lished last month in the jour­nal Nature Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, opti­mum con­di­tions for life on Earth are shift­ing north and south from the equa­tor toward the poles.

It found that 600 mil­lion peo­ple have already found them­selves in regions hit by extreme heat, food scarci­ty and high­er death rates.

The poten­tial out­come, should human-caused glob­al warm­ing go unchecked, is that three bil­lion peo­ple will be out­side opti­mum areas for sus­tain­ing life.

The Mediter­ranean Sea has already become a mag­net for human migra­tion – caused by wars, of course, but also drought and heat in Africa – wit­ness the sink­ing off Greece last week of a fish­ing boat crammed with sev­en hun­dred refugees. The death toll will total in the hundreds.

Nor are north­ern reach­es of the Earth far­ing well. Sum­mer has yet to offi­cial­ly begin, but fires have already con­sumed 11.6 mil­lion acres of bore­al for­est and range­land in the Cana­di­an province of Alberta.

Large fires in the provinces of Que­bec, New Brunswick and Nova Sco­tia have sent smoke over the east­ern Unit­ed States, giv­ing cities such as Allen­town, Penn­syl­va­nia, briefly the most pol­lut­ed air on the planet.

Our liv­able cor­ner of the plan­et is not exempt.

The fire sea­son in the Pacif­ic North­west is grow­ing, while fire dan­ger now extends to the west, “wet” side of the moun­tains. Smoke from fires in British Colum­bia briefly gave Seat­tle the continent’s worst air twice in the past decade.

As well, fur­ther north, the Arc­tic is warm­ing at a rate four times faster than the rest of the globe, which is extreme­ly alarm­ing. Recent eval­u­a­tions say Arc­tic sea ice could dis­ap­pear com­plete­ly by the end of sum­mer, as earl as the 2030’s. It has been shrink­ing at a rate of about 12.3 per­cent a year.

Start­ing in the hot sum­mer of 1988, experts have pre­dict­ed that cli­mate dam­age will enter the pub­lic con­scious­ness and move to the fore­front of vot­er con­cerns. The rate of warm­ing has increased, we are liv­ing with its con­se­quences, yet there has yet to be an upsurge in pub­lic anger and demand for action.

We remain fix­at­ed on oth­er things.

The polit­i­cal right has warned that cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion means eco­nom­ic ruin. It has also man­u­fac­tured issues: wit­ness the bash­ing of trans­gen­der teenagers. As this is writ­ten, Texas is swel­ter­ing in record heat, with tem­per­a­tures pre­dict­ed to climb as high as 115 degrees. Yet, Texas Gov­er­nor Gregg Abbot is hunt­ing head­lines by dis­patch­ing a bus­load of Cen­tral Amer­i­can refugees to Los Angeles.

In Cas­ca­dia, much has been accom­plished in pro­tect­ing wild places, cre­at­ing nation­al parks and mon­u­ments, and clean­ing pol­lu­tants out waters once the col­or of tobac­co spit due to pulp mill pol­lu­tion. We are work­ing at restor­ing salmon runs and assur­ing sur­vival of our endan­gered south­ern res­i­dent orca whales.

Yet, cli­mate dam­age threat­ens to sweep away our vaunt­ed liv­abil­i­ty. As we enter the height of this year’s fire sea­son, it is time to hold our lead­ers’ feet to the fire.