The sweeping view before me is said to be one of the most iconic waterscapes in Venice. Ferries, vaporettos, and wooden boats speed across the surface of St. Mark’s Basin with the city’s skyline as an impressive backdrop. To my left, I can see the Lido through the hazy air: a narrow barrier island that separates the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. It offers some protection from sea storms for the sinking metropolis–built over 2,000 years ago atop marshy islands–but not enough.
Today, Venice is also grappling with rising seas. On the far side of the Lido, massive steel gates sit on the seabed, waiting to be activated to protect Venice from increasingly higher tides. The eight billion dollar flood-protection system is called the MOSE: named for its Italian acronym (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico) and the biblical figure Moses, who legendarily parted the waters of the Red Sea. Scientists and engineers consider the system to be a temporary “stopgap.” More extreme measures will have to be evaluated to keep Venice above water, as climate change accelerates in the coming decades.
A Dystopian Hellscape
Sitting at a waterfront table in the Giardini della Biennale–the largest green space in Venice–I am surrounded by Italy’s notoriously loud cicadas, buzzing and whining from the magnificent plane trees that dominate the garden. The contemporary art exhibit in the nearby historic Central Pavilion is sensory, political, and contemplative. The people around me in the cafe are as animated in their conversations as are the insects.
Despite the rich sensory input, all I can feel is an oppressive dread: a vision of a dystopian hellscape. The heat and humidity on this first day of July are intolerable. Beads of sweat drip down my face. My clothes are wet. I am slightly nauseous and my head aches. The heat index–how the air feels to the body–is approaching 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Local weather experts issue red alerts and describe the heat wave as “unusually extreme and early.”
My anxiety about the future for all of us persists. What will it be like in Venice and in other cities around the world in fifty years, or even in a few decades, if we don’t stop burning coal, oil and gas?
The Silent Killer
Called the “silent killer,’ extreme heat is the deadliest weather hazard in the United States. High humidity increases the risk, preventing sweat from evaporating efficiently from the human body. This can lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and death. The climate crisis is causing heat waves to become hotter, longer, and more frequent.
As I walk along the canals of Venice–eating my fast-melting gelato–parts of Western Europe are suffering under a more severe, stagnant heat dome that is killing thousands: a lid has been placed on a pot of boiling water. In Atlanta, where the heat index is 105 degrees F., the 57th Peachtree Road Race begins under “red flag” conditions on July 4, indicating potentially dangerous heat and humidity. Nationally, parades and celebrations to commemorate our country’s 250th birthday are cancelled or modified to reduce health risks. Temperature records are shattered in cities throughout the eastern U.S. with triple digit readings.
According to World Weather Attribution–a scientific collaboration that rapidly evaluates the role of climate change in driving extreme weather events–the severity of the recent heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” in 1776. Since its founding, the U.S. has warmed three degrees F., driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Climate change is “loading the weather dice” against us.
Fossil Fuels Declining
Ember Energy is a climate and energy think tank known for its reliable, data-driven insights and freely accessible data. In this year’s Global Electricity Review, the organization reveals that clean power is scaling rapidly–meeting all growth in global electricity demand. Supported by battery storage, solar is the leading source of new generation around the world. Renewables (solar, wind, hydropower) overtook coal power last year for the first time in one hundred years, accounting for less than a third of global power generation.
The Ember report notes that fossil fuels continue to play a significant role in many places; however, for the first time, fossil generation declined last year in China and India, even as demand grew. China continued to lead the solar build-out. India installed more new solar capacity than the U.S. for the first time. This record solar growth in two of the biggest carbon emitters on the planet brought global net growth in fossil generation to a halt.
This worldwide structural shift in the power sector is largely market-driven. Clean, renewable sources are now less expensive and less vulnerable than volatile fossil fuels. According to Ember, we have “firmly entered the era of clean growth” and may be observing “a permanent route to energy security.” Its analysis predicts that fossil generation will plateau before consistently starting to decline in the early 2030s, assuming demand and clean electricity growth continue at the current pace.
This positive news has lifted my feeling of dread somewhat, along with returning to Atlanta’s slightly cooler temperatures.
Noted environmentalist and author Bill McKibben has observed that we have abundant energy thanks to cheaper renewable sources. McKibben: “We’re used to thinking about [solar and wind] as the Whole Foods of power, nice but pricey. In fact, they are the Costco of energy, inexpensive and available in bulk.” He cautions, however, that we are “drastically short of time to deploy these technologies to prevent catastrophic warming.”
In the U.S., the Trump regime and the Republican Party are reversing the transition to renewable power through policy rollbacks and disinvestment–in defiance of the market and to the serious detriment of our economy, our health, and our future.
Stay hydrated–both now and while you wait to vote in November.
RELATED
The Atlanta City Council’s Community Development and Human Services Committee advanced a resolution earlier this month directing city departments to create a heat safety plan and take steps to protect residents from rising temperatures. The measure is expected to come before the full council for a vote in August, possibly at the Aug. 3 meeting starting at 1 p.m.
