Good evening. It is good to be with you. And we begin tonight with
a fast spreading fire that's burning out of control in California
at the doorstep of Yosemite National Park, hot and dry conditions
linked to climate change or making it an exceptionally tough fire
to fight.
The flames moved so swiftly. Residents had very little warning to
get out.
The fire engulfed entire homes in the sparsely populated mountain
communities of Mariposa County. So far more than 6000 people have
been forced to evacuate. Fire ignited Friday afternoon and since
then has exploded inside more than doubling from Saturday into Sunday.
22 square miles.
Enabling the fire bone dry vegetation after the worst drought in
a decade.
Hell Fire authorities report more than 2000 Firefighters are battling
the blaze that so far is 0% contained.
The fire is so large, it's visible from the international space station
drifting over a swath of the western United States.
That says 85 million people across the country this weekend are under
excessive heat warnings or advisories in some places, temperatures
hitting triple digits.
Joining us now to talk more about the role of climate change. And
all of this is Michael Man, He's a professor of atmospheric science
at Penn State University and author of the New Climate War. Michael.
It's good to have you with us. And look, we've got record heat from
coast to coast drought in the South and the West. You've got pervasive
wildfires as this map that we're going to put up makes clear.
Does all of this mean that that climate change is happening faster
than expected? Thanks, Jeff. It's good to be with you. It's unfortunate
that we're always talking about these sorts of very damaging extreme
weather events these days. And, yeah, there are some impacts of climate
change that are playing out faster and and with a greater magnitude
than we predicted, just say a decade ago or so. That's true with
the collapse.
Of the ice sheets and the sea level rise that's occurring because
of that.
And it's true with many of these extreme summer weather events that
we're seeing. And one of the ingredients, of course is, you know
you make the planet warmer. You're going to see more extreme heat.
You dry out the continents in the summer, You're going to get worse
Drought. You combine that heat and drought and you get the sorts
of wildfires that we've seen out West in California.
And throughout the western United States in recent years, But there's
an act extra ingredient there. That isn't actually very well captured
in the models, and that's the behavior of the jet stream that causes
these high and low pressure systems to get stuck in place. And when
you get one of these deep high pressures like we have out west right
now.
Over California and the Western US and that's when you get those
extremely hot, dry conditions that give you these wildfires. And
what's happening is those systems are getting stuck in place. So
the extreme heat that we've seen the floods the wildfires that drought
across the entire Northern Hemisphere this summer. Part of what's
going on is this sort of stuck jet stream pattern. It is something
that we think is being made more frequent because of climate change,
and it isn't well captured in the models. It's another
Binder. That uncertainty isn't our friend here.
Are the heat waves across the globe connected. I asked the question
because we saw parts of Oklahoma hit 115 degrees this past week.
Meantime, you've got airport runways melting in the UK from the heat
is all of that connected.
It is connected. I mean, obviously, you know, you make the planet
warmer. You get more of that extreme summer heat, So there's that
connection. But there's also this behavior of the jet stream where
you get these very large Manders when the jet stream wiggles north
and South dramatically, That means that there are big weather systems
underneath their big, high and low pressure systems. And that's where
you get
Either with a high pressure. The extreme heat drought in those wildfires
are with a low pressure, the extreme flooding and so we've seen this
summer after summer. It's sort of Groundhog Day now here every summer.
Now we see this phenomenon. Part of it is pretty basic. It's easy
to explain in terms of human caused warming, but some of the mechanisms
are more subtle and again. They are one of the reasons the models
may be underestimating the impact that climate change is now having
on these devastating extreme.
Events that we're seeing every summer. It's interesting. Former Vice
President Al Gore was on a number of the Sunday shows this morning,
and he made that same point that some of the warnings about climate
change might have been in many ways to conservative. Take a look
at this and the fact that they were dead, right, maybe a little conservative,
even in their projections.
Should cause us to pay more careful attention to what they're warning
us about. Now. They're saying that if we don't stop using our atmosphere
as an open sewer, and if we don't stop these heat trapping emissions,
things are gonna get a lot worse. So what do you make of that? Well,
you know, Al Gore was out there in front warning us decades ago as
the scientific community was warning us decades ago and what we're
seeing happen now?
Is our predictions playing out? Um, that's the sad part of this.
We understood that we had a crisis on our hands decades ago, but
because of inaction, much of it because of the fossil fuel industry
and politicians who refused to act on climate. We've allowed this
problem now to grow to epic proportions to the point where we're
seeing the devastating consequences play out in real time.
President Biden. As you know, he's trying to keep his faltering climate
change agenda alive by taking executive action, since you have Democratic
Senator Joe Manchin and all of the Senate Republicans withholding
their votes on legislative action are executive actions enough and
what more should the private sector do on their own? I would think
that good climate policy would also be in many ways good business
policy.
Yeah, That's exactly right. Jeff and you are seeing some companies
take a more enlightened view. Recognizing that you know that that
their customers that their clients expect environmental stewardship.
This is weighing on the minds of Americans. Increasingly, these devastating
impacts that we're seeing from extreme weather events that have been
exacerbated by climate change. And so it is important that business
be out in front, Um lobbying politicians to act on our collective
behalf to do what's right here, but
You're right.
Right now. We're sort of stuck with this split congress with you
know, UH, Democrat and Joe Manchin, who refuses to support his fellow
Democrats in, uh, in passing climate legislation. There's a limit
to what you can do through executive actions. The Biden administration
is doing what it can. But the most important thing it can do right
now is to use the bully pulpit.
To
convey the absolute absolutely essential
importance of turning out in these midterm elections this fall in
voting for politicians who will support climate legislation, because
the only way that we are going to be living be able to live up to
our obligations to the rest of the world to cut our carbon emissions
in half by 2030 as we've promised. The only way that will happen
is if we pass climate legislation, and we need a Congress that's
willing to do that. And
If we have, you know Congress, people who aren't willing to do that.
We need to vote them out, and we need to vote in those who will.
Michael Mann. It's always great to speak with you. Circumstances
aside. Thanks so much for your time.