A recent headline in the New York Times said, “Storm Lashes the Carolinas With Historic Amounts of Rain — More than a foot of rain fell on parts of North Carolina over 12 hours, catching residents, officials and forecasters by surprise.” It caught people by surprise? How is that possible? The oil companies have known since the 1950s that climate change would be the result of using their products. Their own scientists gave them all the information they needed to know their business model was a threat to the environment, but they just plowed ahead, boring holes in the ground, building refineries, and creating distribution networks because profits were more important than survival.
Scientists have told us for at least 50 years the facts of life. Warmer air holds more moisture. More moisture means heavier rains. Warmer oceans pump more moisture into an already warmer atmosphere. And all the time, we silly humans continue burning fossil fuels, which make the atmosphere and the oceans warmer still and ramps up the whole process another notch. Those residents, officials, and forecasters shouldn’t have been surprised by historically heavy rains. They should be surprised it doesn’t happen more often. READ FULL ARTICLE