PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 12, 2023
Even when horrifying weather events aren’t dominating news headlines and stoking alarm, our world is warming. Our weather systems are becoming more extreme and less predictable. We are likely more than halfway through the warmest year since instrument records started in the 19th century. Though “denialism” has mostly receded from view – “… dead,” declared Washington Post columnist Philip Bump in a July 7 column, “immolated in 110-degree heat or asphyxiated on wildfire smoke or drowned in a flash flood” – too many of us, and too many administrative bodies, still regard climate change in the abstract.