Editor’s note: This article addresses climate disasters in the U.S. It was published in the People’s Tribune February-March print edition. View here. Just this week, the WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2024 report said we saw the largest three-year loss of glaciers on record from from 2022-224, and that preservation of glaciers is a matter of human survival.
“Trump’s reelection is something we need to be radicalized by. Go out and flood the streets . . .use every possible tool [to leverage the urgency of climate change]. As democratic citizens we have an obligation to act…” — Greta Thunberg, world-renowned climate activist.
In the U.S. alone, year 2024 saw 27 weather/ climate confirmed disaster events with damages over $1 billion each, resulting in at least 568 deaths according to NOAA. This is up from an annual average of 9 events from 1980–2024.
Hurricane Helene was stronger and wetter because of global warming. In Southern California, hot, dry, windy conditions contributing to the wildfires were 35 percent more likely because of human-caused climate change, says the Climate Science Consortium World Weather Attribution. Fire weather will intensify as the world grows warmer.
First Street, a climate modeling firm, says more than five million people in the U.S. will move from areas affected by climate change this year. Over 52 million are expected to flee the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and fire-prone areas in the West over the next 30 years.
Millions have nowhere to go. With wealth inequality rising, and nearly half of Americans unable to afford a $400 emergency, extreme weather events will exacerbate the human crisis.
As thousands remain homeless and vulnerable to the negative effects of global warming, Trump is doubling down on opening new leases to fossil fuel corporations. He has floated the idea to abolish FEMA, forcing each state to deal with the crisis. The billionaires ruling Congress want to cut trillions in social spending, including clean energy, but not their billions in government subsidies.
The urgent need to unite to stop the billionaires from destroying any chance we have for a future could not be clearer.
As the late Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster, said, “I’ve seen ordinary people do the most heroic things. When you’ve had the privilege of knowing so many great fighters, you can’t lay down the sword… What keeps us going is our love for each other and our refusal to bow our heads, to accept the verdict… It’s what ordinary people have to do…You have to fight.”
Cathy Talbott is a former telephone operator, a job lost to automation. She was a homeless mother of two and fights for welfare rights. A former co-host of a weekly community radio program out of Carbondale, IL, “Occupy the Airwaves,” Cathy is the Environmental Desk for the People’s Tribune.
