Extreme weather ‘just a small preview of what’s going to happen,’ warns climate scientist

The extreme weather across the U.S., from the devastating Caldor Fire scorching the West Coast to the deadly flooding and tornadoes slamming the East Coast, could pale in comparison to future weather events, warned climate scientist Andrew Dessler on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”   

“This is climate change, and it’s just a small preview of what’s going to happen if we don’t start, stopping emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” said Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. “We really need to do that, or we’re going to look back on this as the good ol’ days.”

2020, in fact, saw the highest concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere ever recorded. A recent report from the United Nations warned the climate crisis is guaranteed to get worse.  

A rare tornado that hit Mullica Hill, New Jersey, left a trail of destruction Wednesday night, as remnants of Ida slammed the entire region. Mullica Hill is located within Harrison Township, and its mayor, Louis Manzo, told  “The News with Shepard Smith” that rare weather events like this illustrate the need to reassess how properties in the area are zoned and infrastructure is built. 

“To be perfectly honest, there is no denying, we are dealing with more significant weather events recently, regardless of what anyone thinks the root is, that’s the truth,” said Mazno.   

Dessler added that it’s time to start looking at coastal cities, like New York, and to figure out how long it will be viable for people to actually live there. 

“We look at cities on the coast like Miami, Houston, and now, New York, and you think, can those people live in those places for a century?” said Dessler during a Thursday evening interview. “If not, at what point are we going to have to relocate those people? I think it’s really an open question, but it’s one that we are going to have to deal with sooner rather than later.”