Hurricane Helene is a humanitarian crisis – and a climate catastrophe | Rebecca Solnit

TWeather used to shape the behavior of the water we had – how much and when it rained, how dry it got, when and how slowly the snow melted at high altitudes, what fell as rain and what fell as snow. Climate chaos is changing all that, disrupting the patterns, delivering or withholding water in torrents unprecedented in history, leading to epic droughts, while soils, meadows and forests parched by heat and drought create ideal conditions for mega-wildfires.

Water at the right time and in the right quantity is a blessing; in the wrong cases it is a scourge and a destructive force, as we have recently seen in floods around the world. In the vice-presidential debate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz noted that his state’s farmers “know that climate change is real. They’ve experienced back-to-back 500-year droughts and 500-year floods.” Farmers around the world have struggling with floods, droughts and unusual weather, affecting their ability to produce food and protect the soil.

Rainfall from Hurricane Helene turned into a torrent on the Nolichucky River in eastern Tennessee, which at its peak was nearly twice Niagara Falls’ normal flow. Water in this and other rivers overflowed dams, sparking fears that the dams could burst. In western North Carolina, the French Broad River, which flows through Asheville, reached an unprecedented peak as dozens of inches of rain in the surrounding mountains quickly drained into its tributaries.

Water became a powerful force, tearing apart buildings, streets and neighborhoods, drowning people and animals, while winds across the region toppled trees, their support weakened by the rain-soaked ground. Roads, bridges, transmission lines and critical infrastructure were washed away or destroyed. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimate that “climate change may have resulted in up to 50% more precipitation in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas during Hurricane Helene.” Additionally, we estimate that the observed precipitation in these areas may have increased due to the Global warming was up to 20 times more likely.”

The sheer amount of water Helene dumped in her 500-mile journey is staggering: 40 trillion gallons, one scientist calculated, which is equivalent to pouring the entire contents of Lake Tahoe over the region, enough water to fill the entire North State Cover Carolina with water -ft deep. “Water is life” became a central slogan during protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016, but it can also be a deadly force. One of the ironies of the current situation in Asheville, North Carolina, and other cities affected by hurricanes and flooding is that there is water everywhere – muddy, contaminated water – but with broken water pipes, power outages and contaminated drinking water sources and laundry is in short supply.

There have been floods in the region before, but this was a climate disaster. Across the world, catastrophic floods are devastating entire regions – perhaps the worst of all was the 2022 floods that swept a third of Pakistan, but the April-May floods in southern Brazil were a disaster that “displaced more than 80,000 people and led to flooding.” 150,000 injured and on May 29th 169 fatalities, 44 people are still missing,” as of June.

Repeated floods in New England and the Houston region are among the climate disasters affecting the U.S., while Britain and continental Europe, Japan and several African countries, including Mozambique and Kenya this year, have been hit hard by floods.

According to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent just last month: “In Chad, where an estimated 1.5 million people are affected, initial estimates suggest the destruction of over 164,000 homes, with all 23 provinces of the country affected.” , and Tandjile, Mayo-Kebbi Est, Logone and Lac are among the worst affected provinces. Over 259,000 hectares of farmland have been destroyed, increasing the risk of food shortages in a country already struggling with chronic food insecurity.” Flooding is nothing new, but the intensity and frequency of catastrophic flooding is. The climate crisis is a water crisis.

We now live on a more violent planet than the one we left behind a few decades ago and one we will look back on as peaceful, gentle and predictable. More violent, unpredictable, chaotic, destructive, dangerous. Part of this danger comes from the heat itself, but water is proving to be a major contributor to the climate crisis. The basic equation cited by climate scientists is that warmer air contains more water. “For every degree Celsius that the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere increases, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere can increase by about 7%, according to the laws of thermodynamics,” NASA says.

That means greater warming will lead to more precipitation – but the climate crisis is also changing wind and ocean currents, making it unpredictable how and where the precipitation arrives. The old terminology of “hundred-year” and “thousand-year events” no longer makes sense because they occur so frequently.

Behind the violence of climate-driven extreme weather is the violence of the fossil fuel industry, whose scientists clearly recognized the coming impacts of climate change and whose executives decided to respond. Their mark is on these storms, on the destroyed homes and destroyed lives, the miles of mud, the puddles of dirty water, the broken power plants and destroyed forests.

We now clearly understand climate change, both its causes and its effects, and we know the solutions, and we also know the obstacles that stand in the way of those solutions. No one is bigger than the fossil fuel industry and the politicians who serve it.