Is recent extreme weather around the world the new normal weather beginning?  Not heat, which is more or less normal in the summer, but the record-setting rain and violent storms.

A Pakistan boy is knocked down by the force from an aide helicopter

Like most extreme weather events not in the United States, our media isn’t covering this enough, or connecting it to climate change. This is the worst flooding in Pakistan in 100 years or more.  Overall, 2010 storms are bringing record rains to many parts of the world. Some of these storms are expected and seasonal, but this year they are additionally fueled by global warming, which adds extra moisture to monsoons, hurricanes, cyclones, etc.

It won’t just be Pakistan suffering from these wet, violent storms more and more in the future — they will happen in Bangladesh, India, Africa, Central America, and other coastal areas, where millions and millions of people live.  They will also happen to the Gulf coast of the U.S., where all those offshore oil drilling platforms are lined up just waiting  for the next major hurricane.

Oddly enough, “. . . . a Purdue University research group found that future climate change could influence monsoon dynamics and cause less summer precipitation, a delay in the start of monsoon season, and longer breaks between rainy periods.”  (Source)  Yet they are experiencing the opposite of that now.  It’s also possible that Purdue University’s research group was influenced by politics.

Many of these people will have to be relocated. There is also a food shortage already, and diseases like cholera beginning to take hold in the area.  Millions of people will be displaced by this and need to be fed.  This is another scenario that will repeat all over the world as climate change escalates.

“Pakistan issued new flood warnings and the country on Wednesday faced a “serious humanitarian disaster” after downpours which have affected 3.2 million people and killed up to 1,500.

A week into the crisis and as more monsoon rains lashed the country, anger was reaching boiling point among impoverished survivors complaining that they had been abandoned by the government after their livelihoods were swept away.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was to chair an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday to estimate the damages — expected to run into millions of dollars — and speed up the relief work”.

Read more here.

I believe severe weather events like this and coming immigration issues are why some politicians in the United States are becoming so anti-immigrant.  They can see some of the results of climate change happening already and know what is to come, even if they don’t want to admit it to the voters. I think that even the climate change deniers in Congress are well aware of the immigration situation we may be facing in 10-20 years due to climate change.  There will be millions of people in Central America and elsewhere that will want to get into the U.S. for survival when crop [...]