Carol T. McPherson: Global warming signals are clear - Wicked Local

The past 12 months in the United States has been the warmest year-long period on record since the start of tracking U.S. weather in 1895. This is the direct result of excessive international dependence on fossil fuels, oil and coal.

Jonathan Overpeck, Professor of Geo- and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona states, "The extreme heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, extreme weather events, floods, and wildfires. This is what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about."

The U.S. from January to July 2012 has set more than 40,000 hot temperature records. Right now, two-thirds of the continental U.S. is under the worst drought conditions in 50 years. During this same time frame, more than 2.1 million western acres were destroyed by wildfires. In early June deluges flooded Minnesota and Florida. At the end of June more than 113 million people were under extreme heat advisories. Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University Geosciences/International Affairs Professor, has acknowledged “a ‘derecho storm’ with energy readings five times that of normal thunderstorms, long-lived, and with large straight-line winds blew through from Chicago to Washington, D.C. killing 20 people and leaving massive destruction recently.”

The solution to global warming/climate change is to stop the world’s dependence on fossil fuels and replace them with renewable “green energy” i.e wind and solar power.

In Newton we need to address the “powers that be” to discover if there’s a plan to join the “Clean Air Cities Campaign.” To learn more about this movement go on line to: CleanAirCities.org. There are 28 cities nationwide on board already. The only two in Massachusetts are Cambridge and Northhampton.

Where do Newton and Boston stand on this?

â€"Carol T.McPherson, Margaret Road