Shrinking: 2012 set to be the hottest summer on record

Records are being shattered across the globe, but no one is celebrating. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, March saw “record and near-record breaking temperatures …[across] the eastern two-thirds of the nation and contributed to the warmest March on record for the contiguous United States.” Temperatures like that haven’t been recorded since 1895 and it’s only going to get hotter. There were over 15,000 warm temperature records broken and if you thought the setting sun would bring some respite to the heat, you were wrong. There were also 21 examples of nighttime temperatures being as warm, or in some extreme cases, even warmer than the record daytime temperatures.

But not only will Americans be breaking out their swimsuits and sunscreen before swimming pools officially open for the summer, they will also be needing their umbrellas. NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has said that there were over 200 preliminary tornado reports last month, a time when there are usually around 80. Damages from the early March tornado outbreak across the Ohio Valley and Southeast subsequently cost the United States $1.5 billion and resulted in 40 deaths.

The climate changes are also spelling out ominous consequences for ecological systems. According to a report from James Hansen, a renowned climate scientist whose predictions for global warming date back to mid-80s, natural ecosystems adapt naturally to temperature fluctuations but the recent swings between extremes have been moving too quickly for nature to keep up. “Although climate fluctuations are normal, the rapid global trend of the past three decades, from an already warm level, is unusually high. The fact that warmer winters have led to an epidemic of pine bark beetles and widespread destruction of forests in Canada and western United States is well known,” he said.

So the coming summer is scheduled to be the hottest on record and dire predictions for the consequences of climate change are coming at Americans hard and fast. But as fast as climatologists can gather data to back their claims, Congress still finds themselves trudging along at an antiquated pace, mired in ideological differences that have little basis in science.

Fossil fuels have a measurable impact on the climate. What baffles me is the stubbornness to stick with dirty, out-of-date fuel sources when there are a myriad of opportunities for change. Why should everything else adapt with lightning quickness – smart phones, Google’s Project Glass, fuel-efficient hybrid cars, even self-steering cars – but we are still digging up dinosaur remains to power our technology? If the impending threat of a Tornado Alley on steroids isn’t enough to compel change, what will it take to switch to sources that don’t bring so much doom down on our heads? And maybe our shrinking animals will politically help sell renewable energy?