Hurricane Helene demonstrated that no place — including Illinois — is safe from climate change. Every effort should be redoubled to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
More than 200 people died in six states as Helene, whose winds were intensified by climate change, swept north from the storm’s Florida landfall. Entire communities were devastated, wide swaths of crops were destroyed and many survivors lost water, electricity or their homes. Hundreds of people are still unaccounted for, and thousands are still without water.
Heavily damaged areas included western North Carolina, where some people thought they resided in a climate haven relatively isolated from the effects of global warming. But Hurricane Helene poured enough water on the southeastern United States that it could have covered all of North Carolina to a depth of 3½ feet if it all fell in that state, the Associated Press reported. The devastation was staggering, even far from where Helene made landfall.
A study released in July by Stanford University and Resources for the Future reported many Americans think they’re immune from climate change. They’re wrong.
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory linked the hurricane’s heavy floods to climate change, saying the best estimate indicates Helene increased rainfall by as much as 50% in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. Flooding on some North Carolina rivers broke 1916 records, and the scientists said the rain over 24 hours made the flooding “up to 20 times more likely in these areas because of global warming.”
Correcting the lies about climate change
Illinois also has suffered extreme weather events. According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, Illinois experienced 126 weather/climate disasters costing more than $1 billion each from 1980 to 2024. Other climate change-fueled natural disasters await Illinois if government at all levels does not act quickly enough.
In coming years, Illinois will have extremely hot years which could hurt corn crops, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Floods are expected to be more frequent and more severe, which could cause sewer overflows into Lake Michigan, polluting the region’s drinking water and increasing exposure to infectious diseases.
Summer droughts may cause water shortages in some areas of the state and strand barges and other shipping on waterways. Hotter days will lead to heat stroke and dehydration — and deaths. Less ice coverage on Lake Michigan can lead to more erosion along Illinois’ coast, including Chicago’s shoreline, and impact some native fish species. Warmer water in the lake is likely to cause more toxin-emitting algae blooms. In recent years, Lake Superior has experienced the first algae blooms in its history as it warms. Global temperatures have varied in the past, but never this quickly.
“There is no escape from climate change,” said Jack Darin, director of Sierra Club Illinois. “The threats are different at different places and at different times.”
With so many threats on the horizon, irresponsible public figures should stop trying to block efforts to limit the global rise in temperatures. People swayed by falsehoods about climate change won’t insist on action. So let’s correct some of the lies that are out there.
No, the planet has not “actually gotten a little bit cooler lately,” as Donald Trump claimed. The year 2023 was the warmest in the 174-year observational record, and 2024 is on a pace to surpass it. On Tuesday, Palm Springs, California, matched the nation’s record-high temperature for that date. Phoenix, Death Valley and other locations set their own records for October highs.
And no, the oceans will not “rise an eighth of an inch in 497 years,” as he also said. Global sea levels are already rising more than an eighth of an inch every year.
Illinois and the nation face two enormous challenges. The first is to decarbonize as rapidly as possible, including buildings and the transportation sector. The second is to build up climate change resiliency, including nature-based solutions that not only capture carbon and reduce flooding, but also make communities more livable.
Illinois also should move stalled legislation to protect wetlands — a front-line defense against climate change — after the U.S. Supreme Court drastically scaled back those protections last year. The goal should be to protect as many people and as many homes and businesses as possible.
In 2022, Congress passed the largest climate action bill in history, the Inflation Reduction Act, but much more needs to be done. In Illinois, environmentalists hope to pass the Cooperative Electric Utility Planning and Transparency Act in the Legislature’s January lame-duck session. The bill would help get more renewable energy onto the power grid more quickly.
The challenge for Illinois and the nation is to limit the vulnerabilities Hurricane Helene exposed and to guard against the kind of tragedies people are suffering in the storm’s wake.
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