(originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press)
Wacky weather is our new norm. I called my daughter in Maine to tell her about how we went quickly from 80 degrees to below freezing. She said, “weird”, but it didn’t compare to what she’s going through. At first she called it a “spring snowstorm”, but as it got worse, she named it a “snowpocalpse”. She lost power, the trees in her yard were downed and despite having a monster truck, she barely made it home from work.
If there’s any doubt that climate change is a reality, pay attention to a recent headline in the Chattanooga Times Free Press that warned of “Brewing Storms” as alarmingly high ocean temperatures suggest a nasty hurricane season coming up. My friends in Bermuda are paying attention. The Bermuda Royal Gazette reports that waters in the Atlantic’s main hurricane development region had temperatures 65 % hotter at the end of January than the next closest year. Temperatures recorded in March aren’t usually seen until mid-July. So late summer should be a hurricane doozy with rapidly strengthening storms, even close to land.
Continue reading Praying for the Earth’s Healing – by Deborah Levine