It's Not a Coincidence Anymore...

The confluence of three recent stories shows that climate change is really happening, in a very big way.

The first was a study that showed that for decades, the research of Exxon's own climate scientists, indicated that the climate was warming, but Exxon publicly stated that it wasn't. Exxon misled the public about climate change, sowing doubt that it was happening. In recent years, however, Exxon has admitted the severity of the problem.

The second was a report that a Russian tanker went across the Arctic from Europe to Asia in record time, thanks to thinning sea ice at the pole:

Sailors have for centuries sought a navigable Northwest Passage: a shorter, faster route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that transits the Arctic. Historically, thick ice made the journey impossible. In the last century, specialized ice-breaking vessels made the trip plausible, but prohibitively expensive, and then only during the summer, when the ice was thinnest. 

But rapid changes to the climate have significantly altered the region’s ice, and Sovcomflot said in a statement that it believed the ship could make the journey “year-round in the difficult ice conditions.”

The third is, of course, Hurricane Harvey. Though this hurricane wasn't caused by climate change, higher temperatures in the ocean and the atmosphere have increased the amount of water vapor that storms pick up. That in turn has caused a drastic increase in the amount of rainfall.

Houston has been hit by terrible flooding, with some areas being inundated by two feet of rain in 24 hours. Some parts of Texas may get as much as five feet of rain over the course of the storm.

The United States hasn't been hit by many hurricanes in the last decade, but Mexico hasn't been so lucky. Asia, however, has been hammered by some of the biggest cyclones in history in recent years.

Things are shaking out just like the climate forecasters predicted: places like Texas and California have been hit by terrible years-long droughts, then they get walloped by torrential thousand-year downpours. Sea level rise is hitting the south Atlantic coast particularly hard.

The Gulf states -- Florida, Texas, Louisiana -- have been home to the loudest climate change deniers, yet they stand the most to lose.

Will they will stop lying about it now? Will they instead admit the truth and blame all the rest of of us for climate change because we burn the oil they extract, and we drive the gas-guzzlers they have fought so hard to keep inefficient so they can sell more oil?

One thing we know for sure is that they will demand we rescue them, yet again. They'll insist we rebuild their houses and businesses in the same flood-prone areas that have been hammered again and again by every storm that comes along.

This does point out another reason why the Keystone XL pipeline shouldn't be built: does it really make sense to build a pipeline to a place that's prone to such massive flooding? They're just going to load it on oil tankers and send it to Asia anyway.

Best not to put all our eggs in one basket.