Heading off a disaster

Well, as Hurricane Michael plows through the panhandle of Florida, we are watching another storm with incredible strength.

Michael made landfall yesterday just east of Panama City, Fla., with winds of 155 miles-per-hour — just two mph short of the Category 4 hurricane being labeled a Category 5. Storm surges were projected to be as high as 13 or 14 feet, ensuring massive flooding in the little towns that dot the Gulf Coast.

Interestingly, the storm hit just two days after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met in Seoul, South Korea. According to the New York Times, the panel’s latest report warns that the world must transform its energy systems in the next decade or risk ecological and social disaster.

Certainly, in the wake of hurricanes Irma, Harvey, Maria, Florence and Michael on the East Coast and the Caribbean, as well as Miriam, Norman, Irma, Lane and Olivia in our neighborhood, the United States might want to revisit its decision to pull out of the climate accord agreement reached in Paris in 2015.

All of the storms mentioned above happened in the last year-and-a-quarter. Out here in the middle of the Pacific, Wikipedia says 2018 is the second most active season since such records have been kept.

By the way, not to scare anyone, but the official peak season isn’t over yet. Normally, the time between June 1 and Nov. 30 is designated as the time frame we are most likely to see cyclonic energy activity.

While scientists keep warning that human activity is contributing to the change in the Earth’s climate, our government has decided they are wrong.

According to The Times, all countries must commit to dramatically reducing greenhouse gases and increase the use of renewable energy sources.

Neither of those essentials will occur without the United States taking the lead. Hopefully, someone in the administration will put the increased storm activity level and the panel’s report together and convince the president to reverse course.

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