June 22, 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland’s industrial heart caught fire.
It wasn’t the first time, it wasn’t even the worst fire that had happened. Other rivers in the industrial heartland had been catching fire for years. But this one went, well, viral, decades before that phrase ever meant anything.
The following year the first Earth Day celebration was held, and the age of environmental consciousness was underway.
This summer, it seems headlines across the world are simultaneously reporting weather extremes of heat, drought, flooding, and fire, and, critically, linking the extreme events to climate change. Political pros are telling me that these events are bringing climate front and center in to daily discourse in a way it has not been in years previous. Extreme impacts are being felt in electorally critical battleground states in the US, and we are just at the beginning of a volatile El Nino event that will likely keep extremes in the news well into 2024.
This week, the suffering from extreme weather dominates headlines around the world.
Something is going on and it is no fun.