By Mary O’KEEFE

Oftentimes when I hear about the effects of human-caused climate change it’s just overwhelmingly sad. The Earth continues to warm and humans continue to argue. For a while it looked like most of us were on the same page, but the winds of misinformation are blowing once again toward the direction of “It doesn’t really matter” or “There’s nothing we can do.”

In Florida a law was passed that climate change and addressing planet-warming pollution were no longer priorities. Many references of climate change were deleted from state laws. Florida TV meteorologist Steve MacLaughlin referred to this in his X post as “Don’t Say Climate Change” comparing it to another Florida law that was to prohibit classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels – referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

I think what is most concerning is that other meteorologists had to come to MacLaughlin’s defense for criticizing this law; many meteorologists are being threatened for telling climate truth.

“This is not an easy statement for a meteorologist to make as there is a lot of pressure to not wade into these climate waters,” said Jeff Berardelli, chief meteorologist at WFLA in Tampa Bay, Florida, in a CNN report on May 21.

But this is what scientists need to do. They need to speak up and they need to speak to everyone – not just those who already know human-caused climate change is a threat.

The heat wave that many in the Northeast and Midwest are dealing with now could be the highest temperatures in 30 years. Over the next five days over 260 million people will experience temps of 90 degrees or higher. But it’s not just a heat wave here or there announced the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service earlier this month. The world marked one full year of back-to-back monthly heat records.

When I hear some people return to the old argument that this is all cyclical and humans have nothing to do with climate change, I compare it to seeing a tornado coming toward your house and you close the door and say, “If we just say it’s a sunny day the tornado will go away.”

Despite this head-banging-against-the-wall fight against those who just don’t want to believe humans have anything to do with climate change there are a few people who give us all hope.

Michael Mann is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Science, a climate researcher and an author. His recent book “Our Fragile Moment” is about the climate crisis and the lessons we can learn from the past.

And there’s the rub … learning from the past.

“When we look at past Earth history, what does it tell us about where we are today and the challenge we face in addressing the climate crisis? One of the challenges is doomism, this idea that it’s too late to do anything about the problem,” Mann said in a YouTube presentation.

He said if people believe there is nothing that can be done it will lead to a path of inaction and disengagement. In a May 2024 article in The New Statesman, he said the attitude of “defeatism is as much of a threat as climate denial.”

One of the lessons that can be learned from past extinction events was a rapid input of greenhouse gases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that caused a dramatic warming, he said.

“Now, today, we are increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere far more rapidly than in any of these past events,” he said.

Mann said if society stops polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning and other activities, then “we will stop the warming of the planet” and society can prevent crossing thresholds beyond which “we will exceed our adaptive capacity as a civilization.”

So he makes it sound simple ­– just stop polluting with fossil fuels. Many states are moving toward that with policies like promoting electric vehicles; however, there are still those who think the race to be the independent supplier of fossil fuels is more important than finding a future solution to our fossil fuel pollution. Like I said: if we just say it’s a sunny day enough times, the sun will shine … right?

Get ready for some real summer weather. Today there will be patchy fog but then warm up to the mid 80s. With a little bit of June Gloom on Friday morning then warming to the high 80s. Then on Saturday and Sunday we’ll have highs in the 90s. We will see some humidity as well.

We will get a little bit of a reprieve after the weekend. On Monday and Tuesday we are going to be experiencing higher than normal temperatures for the next few days, according to NOAA.