The new normal

The past several weeks have offered residents of the North Country and much of the rest of the northern U.S. a reminder that no one can escape the effects of a warming climate. Twenty years ago, the number of summer days during which residents of northern Minnesota experienced poor air quality was virtually zero. That has changed remarkably, and climate change is major reason why.
Wildfires in Minnesota and all across Canada and the western U.S. are becoming far more common in the summer than in the past, and when they do occur they are much larger and produce broader and more intense air quality impacts than in the past. Fire season in northern Minnesota used to be short, generally limited from snowmelt to green-up in the spring, with a very short fall fire season if conditions were dry.
But as temperatures have warmed and the frequency of drought has increased, wildfires can occur in northern Minnesota in virtually any month without snow cover. This isn’t just our imagination. These changes are real, documented by actual weather data from thousands of weather stations and these changes are consistent with the steady rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
And you don’t need a weatherman to know there’s smoke in the air. We feel it in our throats and in our eyes and see it in the sky. The state’s Pollution Control Agency tests air quality on a daily basis and agency officials regularly alert us when wildfire smoke is particularly dangerous.
Already this year, we’ve had Air Quality Index readings in our local area as high as 175, a level that’s considered unhealthy for everyone, not just sensitive individuals. The smoke contains tiny soot particles that can penetrate deeply into our lungs, creating respiratory problems and even more serious health problems, like lung cancer, over time.
Changes in climate have becoming increasingly dramatic and impossible to dismiss, even though some still refuse to acknowledge the reality of climate change and its link to human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels generates a wide range of pollutants harmful to humans and other life on this planet, but it’s the generation of CO2, long known as a heat-trapping gas, that poses the greatest risk to our future. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, CO2 comprised about 280 parts per million in the atmosphere. Most climate scientists believe anything over 350 ppm is likely to cause serious consequences in the long term. Yet, earlier this year, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere topped 425 ppm for the first time and the rate of increase continues to rise despite the limited progress the world has made in its much-needed shift to carbon-free sources of energy.
Climate change is already having major repercussions across the country. The cost of insuring homes and other property is rising rapidly, particularly in places like California and Florida, where the risks posed by worsening wildfires or super-charged hurricanes are rising every year. Food prices are increasing in part because drought is limiting agricultural production. This year, almost the entire Midwest is experiencing drought of various intensity. We all need to get used to higher food prices because they’re here to stay, due in large part to climate change.
And we also need to recognize that our overall health is going to be affected as the planet’s forests continue to burn. Living in northern Minnesota no longer guarantees that we’ll have clean air to breathe. These days, there’s no place remote enough to avoid the effects of an Earth that is increasingly on fire.
The rise of CO2 is an inconvenient fact with many dire consequences, but it’s a fact that we need to face up to and take aggressive action to address.
Unfortunately, because this is America in a deeply divided age, concern over climate change has turned needlessly partisan. Twenty-years ago, concern over climate change was an area of bipartisan agreement, but that has changed and it has hampered America’s ability to meet this challenge.
That’s unfortunate, because the reality is that we all breathe the same air and climate change is making the quality of that air worse. That’s not anyone’s imagination. It’s not even a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of fact and the sooner we all face up to it, the sooner we can begin to take the serious steps needed to save ourselves and all of the other creatures with which we share this remarkable planet.