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Observations
September 26, 2019 |
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Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 put West Market Street under water for the third time since Fran came through in 1996. Floyd gave us more of the same in 1999.
 Wingate Lassiter |
"Climate change" a political plot?
That's not the prevailing sentiment
As a dues-paying member of the Rotary Club of Central Johnston County, I receive a copy each month of The Rotarian, official magazine of Rotary International, a charitable organization that champions peace and good will with words and deeds worldwide.
A couple of months ago the magazine delved into "climate change," not surprising for an organization deeply devoted to such basic causes as clean water and sanitation and sustainable agriculture. What was surprising were letters from Rotarians objecting to the magazine's coverage of what's taking place across the planet, calling the emphasis overly alarmist and just another example of a worldwide conspiracy to mislead people for political gain and nothing more.
Boy, did that criticism draw some strong responses.
The latest edition of The Rotarian included several letters from Rotarians defending the magazine's climate-change edition. I was most impressed by a letter from a U.S. Air Force veteran who served in the field as a meteorologist:
"Climate change is based on massive, nonpolitical data collection, compilation, and analysis," he wrote. "Every day, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collects and analyzes more worldwide weather observations than the total volume of items in the Library of Congress. Agriculture, transportation, commerce, and military operations run on that data," he said, and that data "is not political."
In spite of
climate-change denial, he continued, "rest assured that
the U.S. military has a solid grasp of the situation and
the threats we may face in the future. All branches of
our military have developed and continue to update
contingency plans to deal with massive migrations of
coastal populations due to rising sea level,
deterioration of agricultural production due to
expanding deserts and depleted aquifers, shifting of
fisheries as food fish seek colder water, and civil
unrest and conflict as families seek safety and food and
as nations seek resources."
The gentleman concluded: "World peace is a core value for Rotarians worldwide, and climate change is a threat to world peace as we have never seen before."
 Matthew's
flood surrounded several houses on North
Seventh Street near the hospital.
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Ask the folks who reside along the North Carolina coast what they think about that after two years in a row of hurricane-induced storm surges that have ruined homes and crop lands.
Or the folks along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas who got hit even worse by torrential rains again this summer.
And while we here in Smithfield were spared the wrath of Florence last year and Dorian this year, it was just three years ago that Hurricane Matthew produced record-setting flooding on the Neuse River here --- and that was just 20 years after Fran and Floyd did the same to us.
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