St. Jude's Storms (or worse) and Hurricane Sandys could end up being frequent if we do not act on climate change

Today, the St. Jude's Day Storm, named after the patron saint of lost causes, battered much of the south of England, killing 4 people in England (and 9 across Northern Europe), cutting power from 600,000 homes, causing traffic chaos, and effectively shutting down many rail services across the south and in London. 

Although this may not be on the scale of the infamous Great Storm of 1987, it was forecast some time in advance-unusual for a storm this powerful. 

 Not so long ago, Hurricane Sandy hit New York, causing of course more severe damage-in fact the damage it dealt was surpassed only by the infamous Hurricane Katrina.

 As artificial climate change exerts a greater effect on our atmosphere and our planet, I believe that these storms could hit temperate areas like ours and much of Europe much more frequently, and with more damage as well. This is because artificial climate change will not only increase the temperature of our atmosphere, it will destabilise weather patterns, melt ice sheets causing sea levels to rise and tides to become more dangerous, adversely increase temperature ranges (which is why we have been having abnormally cold winters in recent years in comparison with hotter summers), cause potentially fatal damage to some ecosystems, which could all culminate in a global catastrophe for us, the human race, and our fellow creatures.

 In order to at least lower the frequency of St. Jude's-style storms, we need to act on climate change, set tough decarbonisation targets, keep environmental measures in place, reduce our consumption levels, obtain fairer wealth distribution, and break free en masse from the neoliberal system that is responsible for much of the damage to our environment.

 Alan.

 

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