The most important part of the 2024 election
Michael Hugh Mosley was a British television journalist and producer. I don’t know how to judge his fame in America, but here in the United Kingdom he was well-known, particularly for inventing a short term radical diet that actually cured type 2 diabetes in some patients. He died earlier this month.
What struck me about Mosley’s situation was that many reports listed his death as “natural causes.” But a man of 67 in robust good health does not die of natural causes. Mosely in fact died from heat exhaustion while on vacation in the Greek isles while walking in temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). He was returning to his hotel to meet up with his wife when he became confused and disoriented. He remained missing for more than 24 hours when his body was finally found.
While Mosley’s death under the circumstances isn’t unheard of, nor is 40 degrees Celsius an unheard of temperature for Greece this time of year, it’s the kind of tragedy we will encounter more and more as temperatures continue to climb due to global warming. And while such deaths will continue to be listed by the silly designation “natural causes,” they are anything but natural.
Climate scientists say heatwaves today are four times more likely than they were in the year 2000. In other words, Mosley’s death was four times more likely today than it would have been just 24 years ago. That ought to set off alarm bells in every thoughtful person across the globe. That ought to make news journalists sit up and take notice. That it clearly doesn’t is dismaying, to say the least.
Many extreme weather events are similarly becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change. Recent studies continue to show that “our climate is heating to dangerous levels,” said Izidine Pinto, Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. Those dangerous levels will increasingly impact ordinary people in tragic ways. No one is safe, not even the billionaires who are funding our current nightmare, a nightmare that seems to be largely forgotten by the mainstream press.
“Every fraction of a degree of warming exposes more people to dangerous heat,” said Karina Izquierdo, Urban Advisor for the Latin American and Caribbean region at the Red Cross Climate Centre. Climate scientists also underscore the danger from high night-time temperatures — a severe threat to health as the body does not have time to rest and recover. Between greater heat during the day and recovery reduced during the night our chances for survival are slowly being squeezed to death. We are setting ourselves up for disaster, yet hardly anyone seems to notice.
This is the grim reality we face today. The most important reason that we win the 2024 presidential election in November is most essential for the least talked about reason. If we lose, we can probably kiss our chances of successfully tackling global warming goodbye. And if America fails in the fight, so too will the rest of the world. This election is far, far more important than most people think. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.