Justin Bullock, FISM News
If 2020 is known as the year of COVID-19, then 2021 is the year of wild weather. Around the globe, weather has been behaving in abnormal ways and, in some cases, setting records. Across the US, temperatures have hit historic highs in places used to the heat as well as places in the north where homes do not even have A/C units. In addition, meteorologists and hurricane trackers are predicting a longer than normal, and more tumultuous, hurricane season. Throughout Europe torrential rain has brought deadly and destructive flash floods which have generated landslides. Finally, in Asia and the Middle East, countries are adopting measures to produce rain that seem to come from science fiction novels.
In the US Midwest and Northwest, as well as throughout Canada, temperatures have hit incredible highs over the past month. This has introduced a situation whereby residents are sweltering under the heat as homes and public buildings are predominately built without A/C units. In fact, many are actually designed to preserve heat due to the normally viciously cold weather. As a result, the demand for window A/C units is slowly rising in these areas.
In recent days Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, has experienced temperatures hovering around 122 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, the government has created a drone technology that will shock clouds into producing rain and has, so far, met with tremendous success. The only concern is that this might create too much rain in Dubai, a place that usually gets approximately four inches of rain per year. This could potentially result in massive and uncontrolled flooding.
Finally, in Europe and China, multiple and massive flash floods have swept through local communities destroying buildings and homes and even killing a number of people. In Zhengzhou, China close to three million people have been negatively impacted by torrential rain and wild floods and, in Germany, hundreds have died with thousands being displaced and left homeless. All of this abnormal weather has resulted in scientists taking a more serious look at climate change and human pollution. To this end, the European Union has already introduced expansive legislation that would dramatically shift policy throughout Europe with respect to climate change. These changes will have a massive impact on how global trade is conducted, but many environmental scientists are saying that it is absolutely necessary.