Global warming comes to Alabama
October 1, 2019 8:35 PM   Subscribe

Summer part two has come to most of Alabama, which like the rest of the Southeast US, has mostly escaped global warming until now. The current heat wave has gone on for several weeks, and is setting records at quite a pace. Echos of the European heat waves in June and July. So far, 2019 is neck and neck with 2016 for hottest year ever.
posted by Maxwell's demon (44 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Good news for Tuvalu and Solomon Islands.
posted by pompomtom at 9:11 PM on October 1, 2019




I expect air-conditioning a bloody stadium should fix this all.
posted by pompomtom at 9:36 PM on October 1, 2019 [5 favorites]


We just had Iron Man here in Chattanooga this past weekend (I volunteered), and it was an extraordinary ordeal (above and beyond the ordeal it's supposed to be). I've volunteered a few years going now and this is the first time I ever felt genuinely worried for some of the people running past.
posted by AdamCSnider at 9:53 PM on October 1, 2019 [6 favorites]


And yet central Montana got 3 feet of snow this past weekend (in September!) and eastern WA recorded one of its earliest snowfalls ever with temps going from highs near 80 to in the high 40s in just a few days.

Everything is off. Nothing is right anymore.
posted by hippybear at 9:56 PM on October 1, 2019 [13 favorites]


And yet Alabama will keep electing climate change deniers to all their major public offices.
posted by PhineasGage at 10:37 PM on October 1, 2019 [6 favorites]


Denial is so 5 years ago. Now it's all about meting out callous violence and cruelty to the sufferers to discourage them from coming for help.
posted by Reyturner at 10:43 PM on October 1, 2019 [18 favorites]


And yet Alabama will keep electing climate change deniers to all their major public offices.

When "effectively doing nothing about it" leads to very similar outcomes to "making things worse", climate change denial is a bipartisan problem that can be found in every state in America along with every other country out there.
posted by Ouverture at 10:48 PM on October 1, 2019 [7 favorites]


"effectively doing nothing about it" leads to very similar outcomes to "making things worse"

Those aren't very similar outcomes. Those are the exact same thing yielding continuous outcomes.
posted by hippybear at 10:49 PM on October 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


Now it's all about meting out callous violence and cruelty to the sufferers to discourage them from coming for help.

I wonder what's going to happen when Miami starts emptying out. They're already dealing with sea level rise to the point where flushing a toilet is a problem.
posted by hippybear at 10:55 PM on October 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


Here in Raleigh, N.C. it’s going to be 93 F today and 95 tomorrow. All time records for both days are 91 I think. Also we get a break this weekend, but for reference Oct. 10 is the record for latest day in the year with a 90+ day. It’s supposed to be fall.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:50 AM on October 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


It’s supposed to be fall.

I'm pretty unhappy. Want to speak to the manager.
posted by thelonius at 4:13 AM on October 2, 2019 [6 favorites]


Also we get a break this weekend

Are you saying it's going to be hot AGAIN next week?
posted by thelonius at 4:14 AM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I had to work outdoors yesterday. Before I left my place I could not locate my hat, but I reckoned “not a problem — I will just buy another one from the store where I bought it.” Nuh-uh: although it was a record-setting day for October 1st (36 C with the humidex, or 97 Fahrenheit), the place stocked only toques at this time of year.

To me, this is more of an issue than Hallowe’en decorating being on store shelves by Labour Day.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:27 AM on October 2, 2019 [7 favorites]


> It’s supposed to be fall.

It is fall. Here in Durham NC, leaves aren’t supposed to start turning colors until mid-October but I’ve already been raking them off the yard for four weeks. The temperatures have been consistently above average since mid spring and I think the trees have given up.
posted by ardgedee at 4:44 AM on October 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


It was 90 degrees yesterday here in Western PA. This shit is really scaring me.
posted by octothorpe at 5:05 AM on October 2, 2019 [5 favorites]


And we set a record for October 1st temperature in Toronto yesterday, with crazy thunderstorms as a cold front passed through late in the afternoon and the ten-degree temperature differential stuffed the air with energy. So yeah.
posted by Quindar Beep at 5:56 AM on October 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


When "effectively doing nothing about it" leads to very similar outcomes to "making things worse", climate change denial is a bipartisan problem

I understand what you're saying here, but if those who would like to do something effective about it lack the political power to enact their plans, what do you suggest should be done?

I'm not trying to be defeatist, it's a serious question that I've been asking myself.
posted by Reverend John at 6:29 AM on October 2, 2019 [6 favorites]


Since the city doesn’t cool off at night anymore we have the unprecedented experience of it being both hot AND dark in fall now.

You know, like hell.
posted by The Whelk at 6:50 AM on October 2, 2019 [29 favorites]


I’ve already been raking them off the yard for four weeks. The temperatures have been consistently above average since mid spring and I think the trees have given up.

Here in DC, trees have been dropping leaves (and, it seems, in some cases losing entire branches or dying entirely) from heat stress - and, recently, drought - since at least early August. It's supposed to go up to 105 today.

And not one mention of the climate crisis in that AL.com article.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:55 AM on October 2, 2019 [6 favorites]


And yet central Montana got 3 feet of snow this past weekend (in September!) and eastern WA recorded one of its earliest snowfalls ever with temps going from highs near 80 to in the high 40s in just a few days.

It's surreal to see pictures of snow and trees with all their leaves.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:32 AM on October 2, 2019


posted by Maxwell's demon

ಠ_ಠ
posted by sgranade at 7:35 AM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


Fear not, Maxwell's demon is the thermodynamic equivalent of a spherical chicken in a vacuum.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:38 AM on October 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


My Alabama garden looks like an apocalyptic grey-brown twig-embedded Anselm Kiefer painting. I abandoned watering of anything but potted plants weeks ago. I give up. Also, FYI, lots of political lefties down here trying to fight the good fight, pleeeeeease stop demoralizing us even further by lumping "Alabama" into one bucket. Not actually helpful in any way, and our (political) life is hard enough. Turn that snarky condemnation into donations to the Doug Jones senate campaign! :)
posted by SinAesthetic at 8:01 AM on October 2, 2019 [20 favorites]


According to the comments in the first link, there's no global warming because Obama just bought a beech house.
posted by octothorpe at 8:02 AM on October 2, 2019


It's Gotten Too Hot for Outdoor Baseball in Texas

I wish that story was true, but the actual truth is just taking the opportunity to waste public money. The Texas Rangers baseball stadium contract in Arlington runs out in a few years (like 5-10), and other neighboring cities were starting to make noise about asking the team to move to either Ft Worth, Dallas, or Frisco respectively. Just starting - nothing even preliminary had been presented. So the city of Arlington heard that and said "please don't move. We will give you (basically) a new free stadium and a new entertainment venue (because there is nothing around the stadium) as long as you re-sign with us for 50 years. Who wouldn't say yes to that?".

This goes back to the post the other day (about re-architecting stadiums), but sports teams don't provide data about actual day to day game attendance, they provide tickets sold, in which the numbers are heavily inflated by season ticket sales. In ticket sales, the Rangers are #6 this year in the American League, top 10 in the baseball, and move between #2-#7 in the AL seasonally. And the new stadium will be a lot smaller, so their total ticket sales numbers will probably drop once they move in.

And I only type this out because I think it parallels global warming conversations well. The statistics are so often used to lie (baseball attendance figures vs actual game attendance) that they (statistics in general) become less useful in making arguments, and instead arguments about 'comfort, relative temperature, vague illusions to history, and rich people buy beach houses and fly in planes' carry more weight. And at various levels of government, funds are used carelessly for pet causes rather than for dealing with issues that will have real impacts on people's lives.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:19 AM on October 2, 2019 [5 favorites]


She is a conservative and a climate change denier and she is so, so close to getting it. So close.

I'm curious to know what the political implications of people no longer being able to ignore their own senses and interrupted lives are going to be.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:15 AM on October 2, 2019 [6 favorites]


I'm curious to know what the political implications of people no longer being able to ignore their own senses and interrupted lives are going to be.

Not good, I daresay.
posted by non canadian guy at 9:36 AM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


It's a tiny data point, but: I do a charity ride in central Texas every year. Usually, it's still warmish -- say, low 80s, but lower humidity -- in early October, but it's never been out-and-out summertime hot.

The forecast for New Braunfels and San Antonio for this weekend is 90+ and high humidity both days. It's gonna suck.
posted by uberchet at 9:45 AM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


The thing to remember is that yes, this is an emergency, but I think the middle latitudes feeling the effects that the high arctic has seen for tens of years is a good thing, and it is still not too late to act. The things we can all do:

1) Vote and donate for leaders who will support the Paris accords.
2) Buy renewable energy from your electric utility. Most utilities offer this, and it is not very expensive.
3) If you drive, and your circumstances allow, consider electric. It is a positive effect on CO2 emissions, especially combined with (2) and it will make your neighborhood air cleaner.
4) Walk & bike if/when you can.
5) Weatherize your house.

Basically the Green New Deal.

Note that none of these have too much of a negative impact on quality of life. A carbon-neutral civilization is within our reach.
posted by Maxwell's demon at 9:45 AM on October 2, 2019 [10 favorites]


Oh, and you don't need to buy a new Tesla to drive an electric car. Lots of used Leafs and so on are starting to appear, at reasonable cost.
posted by Maxwell's demon at 9:49 AM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]




Clearly Trump drawing the hurricane to Alabama was a signal to Putin to turn the weather manipulation death ray satellites there.
posted by symbioid at 10:42 AM on October 2, 2019


A carbon-neutral civilization is within our reach.
posted by Maxwell's demon at 11:45 AM on October 2 [+] [!]

Eponysterical.
posted by symbioid at 11:17 AM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]


I'm curious to know what the political implications of people no longer being able to ignore their own senses and interrupted lives are going to be.

I think we're going to see the Green New Deal going mainstream on the moderate liberal/Left, and conservatives picking up the banner of "let's pay contractors billions of taxpayer dollars to launch whatever silver-bullet geoengineering solutions the private sector starts hawking." That's going to be the competition once the switch flips and outright denial is no longer possible for most Americans.
posted by AdamCSnider at 12:18 PM on October 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


Yesterday, Memphis set the high temperature record for October with 96 F. It beat the former record high for the month by two degrees.

As of right now, it's 97 F in Memphis.
posted by vibrotronica at 1:20 PM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I'm curious to know what the political implications of people no longer being able to ignore their own senses and interrupted lives are going to be.


We often talk about how capital responses to the crisis it : the first time was to move all the problems and waste and exploitation in location. First moving factories from dense, unionizing cities, then the US South, then the global south. The second response was Finanicalizatiom, moving the problems away in time via land and debt and credit systems.

The next response will be moving the problem out of reality, hypernormalization as economic system, who are you going to believe the TV or your lying eyes?
posted by The Whelk at 4:11 PM on October 2, 2019 [4 favorites]


A balmy 98 here in Richmond, on our hottest Oct. 2 on record.

I was down in SE Alabama a couple weeks ago. It was, in fact, real hot. The dust blowing looked vaguely Fury Road-esque at one point. Not entirely uncommon at harvest, but... amplified.

This wasn’t the first time I had a filmic climate experience this summer — there was a combo wind/dust thing in Richmond a month or so back, and when I was driving down I-95, it really looked like an outtake from The Day After or something. Mini-trash-cyclones, dust, bruised sky, the whole Blade Runner/Neo Tokyo bit.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:08 PM on October 2, 2019


I understand what you're saying here, but if those who would like to do something effective about it lack the political power to enact their plans, what do you suggest should be done?

I'm not trying to be defeatist, it's a serious question that I've been asking myself.

There are ostensibly blue states like California and New York that should have the political power and material ability to rapidly decarbonize at the rate needed to arrest climate change to the point where it "only" displaces and kills hundreds of millions of people.

But they haven't done it because that requires imagining a world not based on infinite economic growth fueled by carbon capitalism. The same goes for Europe.

What should you do? Fight to bring power to the parties that can do just that.
posted by Ouverture at 9:08 PM on October 2, 2019


Today at 5 PM in Atlanta they're going to start a baseball playoff game, and it's going to be 95 degrees.

Today and tomorrow will almost surely be Atlanta's 90th and 91st days over 90 degrees this summer, tying and setting a new record.

The leaves are starting to fall and there's no way I'm raking in this heat.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:32 AM on October 3, 2019


Hot weather is not climate
Cold weather is not climate
Weather <> Climate
posted by republican at 3:09 PM on October 6, 2019


Do you believe weather and climate to be related?
posted by Comrade_robot at 6:01 AM on October 7, 2019


Pay no attention to the trolls, especially when it's only Republicans/Fox News who throw snowballs on the Senate floor and gleefully cite winter weather as "proof" there is no climate change.
posted by PhineasGage at 9:12 AM on October 7, 2019


It's true hot weather isn't climate, but breaking 115 year old records day after day sure is.
posted by Maxwell's demon at 8:56 PM on October 9, 2019 [1 favorite]


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