You’d think the Oct. 6 article, “Helene injects climate change into campaigns,” would be a wake-up call to take climate change seriously. But as New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells recently warned, days of front-page coverage may not be enough to keep us from falling back into a state where we are “inured” to, and thus less prepared for, worse disasters to come.
We’ve had “cautionary tales” before, from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 to 2024’s record-breaking floods on four continents. Yet we’ve still managed to sleep-walk before and after more extreme weather events. Could Hurricane Helene be different? After all, it struck where almost no one had predicted hurricanes could reach. Asheville, North Carolina, is 600 miles inland from Florida and two thousand feet above sea level, a sure-bet climate haven that is no more. Forty trillion gallons of rain (one-third the volume of Lake Erie) fell on the Southeast United States in just a few days.
Early estimates suggest climate change increased the superstorm’s strength and duration by 20%. The hurricane, coupled with the upcoming presidential election, could indeed be a wake-up call, but only if we vote for candidates who support policies that aggressively address such catastrophes.
Edward W. Wolner,
Oberlin
