Disaster and Change

The tornado that hit a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa is only the latest weather-related disaster this week. At this hour, four people are known dead from this event, some 40 injured. It was a big tornado, destroying buildings and trees over some 1800 acres.

Meanwhile, eastern Iowa is bracing for the worst flooding in 15 years later this week, along with Missouri and places in other states. Serious flooding has been going on for days in Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, along with torrential rains. Tornadoes have touched down this week in Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas.

These disasters do more than immediately kill and injure. They throw communities into chaos, destroy homes, cut off power, flood crops, cause damage it can take years and major resources to repair.

Then there are the slow-motion disasters, like the heat waves that are roiling the northeast, from Pittsburgh to Boston and Washington. Seventeen people have quietly died because of these heatwaves just this past weekend.

Disasters like these have strange proportions. They dominate the reality of the people and places where they happen, and may have impact on their lives for a long time. But they are the subject of a few minutes on some newscasts (and if it's a heat wave, no more than that even in affected areas.) Many newspapers and cable glibfests ignore them. Even when media tries to cover them, their slovenly habits, poor training and experience result in reports that are even more inane than usual. And they really can't cover patterns of disasters. With rare exceptions, they don't seem to be smart enough.

There is always argument over whether this disaster or that one is related to the Climate Crisis. But global heating of the atmosphere is such a pervasive change, that even when it can't be established that they cause particular patterns of violent and extreme weather, it's unlikely that these patterns aren't related.

Lately I've become more persuaded that it will take major disasters for real action to be taken on the Climate Crisis. I'm a very reluctant convert to that view, though I hope to be pleasantly surprised. But if so, then the question becomes: what is major? And that's a matter of perception.

Right now, cumulative awareness is growing because there are more and more people who have been directly affected by one disaster or another. There are the long-term trends: drought here in the West, heat and storms in the East, with the two tendencies meeting violently in the Midwest. Plus these specific, awful instances and events.

These disasters aren't being ignored by everyone. Governments must deal with these disasters, and many businesses must pay attention to the effects. Both have to be smart enough to see patterns, and anticipate needs. Local and state governments in particular must be ready to respond. If they aren't, people will vote them out. So if there are patterns, they have to take them seriously. They have to be prepared. And if that takes regional coordination and eventually national networks, they work to organize those, even if these activities rarely make the news. And businesses that need to anticipate the future also may work quietly.

When there is destruction there must be rebuilding, and Climate Crisis awareness is already leading in some instances to design choices with it in mind. This can go beyond both "green buildings" and more attention to flood control, for instance. As Matthew Waxman wrote: " The planning policy would focus on finding sustainable solutions to broken or destroyed systems. Disaster in this way is used to jump-start changes in infrastructure and thus alter daily habits, patterns, and preferences on everything from energy consumption to transportation, housing and health, economic development, community and civic facilities, open space, food, and lifestyle."

And even if these separate disasters don't have the kind of single, focused impact that could spur policymakers to get serious and act, their cumulative effect may be that when leadership proposes, they will be ready to begin what will need to be a major shift in policy, action and daily life. Because if there is no action until disaster is so huge that it can't be ignored, there's a huge risk that by that time it will be too late. And a risk that the wrong decisions will be made in a climate of fear, as we learned all too well in the past decade.

Maybe it will happen like the Civil Rights revolution: years of writings, then single actions, grassroots leaders, demonstrations growing larger, until one President recognizes that America is paying attention and proposes the Voting Rights Act, and after his assassination the next President takes the lead. But in Congress it came down to a few heroes, to Everett Dirksen, the Republican Senate leader who famously said of it that it was an idea whose time had come, and to California Senator Clair Engle, remembered by Keith recently for casting a vote to break the filibuster, even though near death from brain cancer. He voted by pointing to his eye to indicate "Aye," because he could no longer speak.

I don't think we can really wait beyond 2009 for the change to begin in a big way. A lot of preparations have been made, but crucial years have been lost. Maybe people are ready. The media may not know how to talk about disaster, but perhaps under their increasingly blind radar, the change is underway.