The Climate Crisis

Can You Hear Me Now? (A Tornado Grows in Brooklyn)

If Gaia is trying to send a message to the U.S. government about the Climate Crisis, she may finally have hit on a way to get through. Because it wasn't quite enough that scientists recently confirmed that the duration of heat waves has doubled in Europe since the 1880s. Or that the early part of 2007 was the hottest since that 1880 as well for the globe as a whole.

And in the department of what have you done to me lately, the fires in southern California weren't enough, nor in the past week the fire emergency that the governor of Montana declared, nor the West Nile virus emergency in three counties that the governor of California declared.

But now there is a major heat wave gripping the eastern U.S., and even though Congress is not in session, the record-breaking temperature of 102 degrees in Washington has attracted notice. The heat is accompanied by haze and toxic air, and has slowed down the Washington subways. As the Washington Post notes, "Because excessive heat can bend steel rails, trains were held to speeds of less than 45 mph, rather than the usual 59 mph. The trains also were operated manually rather than automatically."

And speaking of subways, what happened in New York City? Here's how an AP story began: A torrential downpour sent water surging through New York's subway system and highway tunnels and across airport runways Wednesday, leaving thousands of commuters stranded and one big question: How could 3 inches of rain bring the nation's largest mass transit system to a halt?

Good question. And I can almost hear Gaia now, looking a lot like Al Jolson just after he sang the first song ever heard in a movie: "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

But the touch of Gaia genius may well have been the tornado that accompanied this storm. Yes, a tornado. In Brooklyn. It tore up entire neighborhoods, forced some 30 people from their homes. There is no record of a tornado in Brooklyn before this one.

Like anything that happens in Washington or New York, this may have gotten some attention. At the very least, there may be fewer Climate Crisis doubters in Brooklyn.