Heading for environmental disaster: "The skies will be blood red soon. Unless we get our act together"

The outrageously picturesque Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado nestles into red sandstone cliffs in the Rocky Mountains, where everything seems larger than life.

Forty years ago, in June 1983, U2 famously defied the elements to play it, emphatically launching their star in the US in the process.

This was captured in U2 Live At Red Rocks, the band’s first video release. Their live album Under A Blood Red Sky included two tracks from the film.

It almost never happened. There was torrential rain and the film crew wanted to move the gig. But the band and Island Records insisted that the show must go on, and it did.

With the cloud and rain and the lights and torches, it looked – and still looks – amazing, atmospheric, apocalyptic.

It was cold enough to see their breaths. Edge said his hands felt “frozen stiff”.

Spare a thought, then, for those who turned up at Red Rocks on 21 June 2023, to see the former One Direction singer Louis Tomlinson.

They were pummelled by super-sized hailstones, some as big as apples.

Nearly 100 were injured, seven hospitalised with broken bones and severe cuts. Car windows were smashed.

Phone videos show torrents of hailstones cascading down stairs and steps like a flash flood in an eco-disaster movie.

Thunderstorms and hail lashed parts of Texas and Colorado on Wednesday. A Louis Tomlinson concert at the outdoor Red Rocks Amphitheater was postponed because of a hailstorm. At least seven concertgoers were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries. https://t.co/xQIobUyYbR pic.twitter.com/cGkVh6qKg7

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 22, 2023

Scary!

But elsewhere heat is the problem.

California, Australia, Greece, Spain and southern France have all burned in recent years. Now, it’s a Texas BBQ, trapped under a “heat dome” with record highs.

The power grid is stressing out, and over 46 million people are under heat alerts as the heatwave expands across New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and the Gulf coast.

Many time-zones away, Vietnam had its hottest day ever on 6 May, when the temperature hit 44.1°C. In China on 7 June, temperatures of over 45°C were recorded.

Spain almost hit 40°C in April. Drought has become a major long-term concern there: in May 2023, the Los Bermejales reservoir in Arenas del Rey in Granada was down to 18% of its capacity.

The same is true across Europe. The result is that when rain finally comes, the ground is too baked to absorb it properly and you get flash floods that inundate cities and towns built on flood plains.

That’s all on land. But what’s happening in the oceans may prove a far greater threat.

MASSIVE WATER SHORTAGES

Sea levels are rising.

Water expands as it warms and thermal expansion of the oceans causes 50% of sea level rise. It also accelerates polar ice-cap melting.

It’s a vicious cycle.

An eejit might think the recent marine heatwave off the Irish and Scottish coasts was great. But it portends huge and fundamental changes in the deep, the effects of which are unpredictable at best.

Two thirds of the earth is covered by oceans. They store carbon and absorb 90% of the energy trapped by greenhouse gases in the Earth’s climate system as heat.

They represent 95% of the planet’s biosphere and all life on earth relies on them to keep doing what they do. But consider this: if they have reached the limits of their ability to store heat we’re looking at an apocalypse.

The charts are ominous.

The past eight years were the warmest on record, and sea levels rose more than twice as fast (4.62mm a year) in the decade between 2013 and 2022 than between 1993-2002, when the rate was 2.77mm a year.

Global ocean temperatures usually peak in March and start to fall from early April.

Not in 2023. Record highs were recorded in March by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And they held at over 21°C for over 45 consecutive days.

Over half of the ocean surface last year experienced at least one heatwave, as we did earlier this year.

Is it any wonder that we hear reports of Orcas attacking ships? They’re probably driven mad by heat.

And it gets worse.

All the experts, for example from NASA, agree that rising temperatures will increase evaporation which will, in turn, drive more frequent and intense storms, with much more rain and snow and a higher risk of flooding in many areas.

Good news for drought-stricken regions, you might think. But this increased moisture won’t fall evenly, or fairly, across the planet.

Paradoxically, even as oceans rise and rainfall increases, there’ll be a massive water shortage.

According to UNICEF, four billion people (almost two thirds of the world’s population!) currently – that means right now – experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year and over two billion people live in countries where water supply is inadequate.

Half of the world’s population are likely to be living in areas facing water scarcity by as early as 2025.

In a world pummelled by storms and sinking beneath the waves?!?!

We have to do bigger and better.

SHAMEFUL SITUATION

Here’s an example: last March, almost two decades after negotiations began, the High Seas Treaty was agreed at the United Nations.

The intention of the agreement is to protect both species and human livelihoods. By 2030 one-third of the oceans, in international waters beyond the control of national boundaries, will be set aside as marine reserves.

It could be the proverbial game changer.

So, is it too much to expect that the Irish, as an island people whose marine territory is ten times bigger than its landmass, would be leading this kind of thing?

And that we develop coherent policies and infrastructural plans to stave off the worst of what may be to come? Like identifying where we need to build dykes and barriers, and then building them in advance of floods rather than after?

Well, a draft plan has been with the Government for a year…

Looking at the shameful situation of our naval service (for an island people!) and the morbid pace and cost overruns of infrastructural developments like hospitals and rail lines, you’d be forgiven for harbouring a deeply rooted pessimism.

Apparently no less than 64 statutory bodies have a role in Dublin’s traffic and transport. If that’s the way on climate change we’re fucked.

These, as Paul Simon sang in ‘The Boy In The Bubble’, are days of miracles and wonders. We’re getting the long distance call.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires has reached this side of the Atlantic. The skies will be blood red soon. Unless we get our act together.

Hoping for the best isn’t good enough anymore.

• The Hog

Hazy skies in New York due to Canadian wildfires