You are to Blame for Record Heatwave Across American South, Scientists Say


The weather is your fault.

And now it’s time to pay big time.

The Guardian:

The record heatwave roiling parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mexico was made at least five times more likely due to human-caused climate change, scientists have found, marking the latest in a series of recent extreme “heat dome” events that have scorched various parts of the world.

A stubborn ridge of high pressure has settled over Mexico and a broad swath of the southern US over the past three weeks, pushing the heat index, a combination of temperature and humidity, to above 48C (120F) in some places.

More than 40 million people in the US, including those living in the Texas cities of Houston, San Antonio and Austin, have been placed under excessive heat warnings, raising fears over the health of people vulnerable to the heat and placing Texas’s energy grid under strain from surging air conditioner use.

The heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans by the burning of fossil fuels made the extreme heatwave at least five times more likely, according to a recent analysis by Climate Central, a climate science non-profit. The punishing heat, which is forecast to linger further throughout the week in Texas, is creating “stressful conditions for millions of people”, according to Andrew Pershing, vice-president for science at Climate Central.

Speaking to the Guardian on Monday, Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University said the university’s campus at College Station has had a string of days above 37C (100F), when it usually doesn’t hit such peaks until August. “It’s depressing to think we’re not even in July and we are getting this sort of heat,” he said. “When it’s this hot you are a prisoner in your own house, you are a prisoner to air conditioning.”

Dessler said that the southern part of Texas will probably have one of its hottest Junes ever recorded as it is most acutely affected by the heat dome that has its epicenter in Mexico – the Mexican cities of Monclova and Chihuahua have set all-time record temperatures of of 46C (115F) and 41C (107F), respectively.

You did this.

You should have stopped breeding.

You should have eaten bugs instead of food.

You should have taken the bus with the blacks.

Now, because of you, everyone is all sweaty.