Floods, drought, heat waves, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme weather – biblical plagues? No, in fact this is just the weather following me around these days!
Let me give you a quick recap of highlights from MY last year, from an extreme weather and “natural” disaster point of view, and then let’s connect the dots and see where it leads.
August 2012: My summer vacation is interrupted by a massive fish die off as thousands of dead fish wash up on the shores of Pigeon Lake Alberta, putting a foul “smell” on the last days of my summer visit with my parents.
September 2012: Tornados and extreme weather threaten to “blow down our party tent” at my home. We had planned, decorated and set up, with incredible attention to detail, a party tent for a family celebration. High winds, extreme rain and a near by tornado tried to take it down, but luckily failed.
Hurricane Sandy: My Neigborhood 3
Winter 2013: Limited snowfall across the northeast impacts my children’s local ski season and opportunities.
April 2013: My son’s allergist tells us that my son now has developed asthma, at age 15. Allergy season both spring and fall will be the worst and most dangerous times for him. He needs to use an inhaler daily and carry another as and “emergency tool” particularly when he participates in sports.
May 2013: Friends in Colorado smell the smoke from fires to their south. They live in fear of spring fires developing near them, but so far they are safe. Many of their friends have lost their homes this year.
June 2013: flooding in the city of Calgary, Alberta devastates my brother’s family and friends, homes and property. My parent’s basement tin Edmonton takes in water, but damage is minimal.
June 2013: My sister-in-law’s Arizona wedding takes place as record high temperatures engulf the region.
Some of MY memorable impacts of climate change this past year …what about you?
Credit: Shutterstock
Now, scientists are telling us that weather is being impacted by humans, for the first time in the history of our planet. We have become the dominate forcing agents when it comes to weather trends. We are changing our climate and impacting our weather.
It’s time that each of us began to connect the dots to how our own lives are directly impacted by our changing climate. I believe in order to really put into perspective what is happening, we need to make these connections back to how climate change is impacted our own lives.
We need to speak out and call it what it is. We need to understand as well, why our climate is changing so quickly…As 97% of climate scientists explain, thorough our burning of fossil fuels and the creation of human made greenhouse gases, we are causing our atmosphere to change; trapping solar radiation that used to radiate back out to space, heating up our world.
These changes in our natural world are impacting our lives NOW. While we can’t easily or quickly fix the climate crisis that we are living through, we can make it less worse then it might otherwise be.
Have any climate stories you would like to share with us?
Yours,
Climate Mama
