Judith Saum of Rumney is a retired environmental health specialist who worked for the health department in Reno, NV, for 22 years. Judith served with the Peace Corps in Panama from 1965 to 1967 and recently became a volunteer with NH Healthcare Workers for Climate Action.
The rain falling on the dried-up garden outside my window this mid-December morning reminds me of the recent conversation at my eye doctor’s office.
In response to my casual comment about the pleasant warm day, one staff member admonished us all “to think snow, because we need it,” adding that it was unusual not to have the ground covered by now. Another, apparently unimpressed by that day’s high-50s temperature, countered that she was wishing for a Florida beach.
I spoke up in favor of the white stuff, relieved that I was not the one bringing up the climate topic for a change. I noted the good-natured exchange of mixed reactions which is typical when the topic of warmer temperature trending comes up.
Choosing to take advantage of the engaging discussion, I shared a little bit about my own story. I explained that my husband and I had lived comfortably for four decades in Reno, NV. But as the devastating climate-amplified wildfires started increasing in California, I started suffering from increasing headaches and sinus infections from the downwind smoke. I was working for the local health department doing school safety inspections during that time, and there were days that students were kept indoors to avoid hazardous air quality.
Predictions that the situation would likely get worse motivated us to sell our Reno home in 2018 and relocate to New Hampshire. In just four years it already has gotten worse. Reno school closures for “smoke days” are not uncommon now.
Though we didn’t expect to entirely escape climate warming here in New Hampshire, I am disturbed by how quickly the change is happening. As I watch the rain outside my window, questions come up. Will I be able to put bird feeders out this year? Last year, to avoid marauding bears, I had to wait until December 18th to hang them, which was three weeks later than the year before. Will I be able to snowshoe out the back door and down to the river this winter? That’s something I have loved doing every winter since we arrived.
While considering these questions, I also admit to having some ambivalence. Certainly, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) predictions about a warmer-than-usual winter couldn’t come at a better time.
A recent article in the Concord Monitor article entitled “Energy costs could keep climbing amid ongoing market volatility” vividly describes the potential impact of liquid natural gas pricing increases on electricity rates. I am concerned about how others in my community and beyond will survive this. Escalating electric costs make my issues about bird feeders and snowshoes seem trivial.
Gratefully, my husband and I were able to install rooftop solar and heat pumps in our home two years ago making high electricity bills less worrisome for us. The good news is that other homeowners now have better incentives for installations like these because of Congress’s recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Tax credits up to 30% for solar and other energy-saving home improvements will be available starting in 2023 through the IRA. It’s also critical that the state applies for its portion of this funding, which it has sometimes failed to do. Perhaps the current electricity crisis will be the catalyst to expand cost-saving energy technologies while also reducing carbon emissions that contribute to climate warming.
Another topic comes to mind that shifted my perspective about the impacts of global overheating. Through my network of Peace Corps returnees, I learned that a few of the volunteers currently serving in hot tropical agricultural communities said that they were witnessing more young people becoming ill with chronic kidney disease (CKD).
A Google search reveals that CKD research points to heat stress from hotter temperatures as the primary risk factor, although toxic exposures may also play a role. This disease is turning up in almost epidemic proportions in some parts of the world, especially in Central America. Most of those becoming ill are young, healthy males who spend long hours laboring in the fields. The heartbreaking truth is that victims of CKD will die unless they receive life-long kidney dialysis support which is unlikely to happen in most cases.
Yet CKD is only one of many climate-related illnesses causing disease and death to multitudes of people across the planet. That’s why the World Health Organization now considers climate change to be the number one health problem worldwide, far surpassing COVID-19 and other diseases.
As I sit here wishing for cold and snow so that I can use my bird feeders and snowshoes, I am also thinking about the brave, hardworking people who live in hotter places around the globe where climate change is already a matter of life and death.
I’ve come to understand that the moral implication of this unjust situation requires giving up any lingering ambivalence so that an urgent transition away from fossil fuels in favor of cleaner, less-costly energy can be achieved.