Mooney-Bullock admits that climate change can be overwhelming and, as the opening of this story suggests, scary. Ryan Mooney-Bullock (left) and Savannah Sullivan lead Green Umbrella’s advocacy efforts. Green Umbrella tackles energy efficiency, transportation infrastructure, local food systems, biodiversity, green spaces, environmental equity, and a host of other issues. “It’s a huge problem that’s hard for people to get their arms around,” acknowledges Ryan Mooney-Bullock, executive director of Green Umbrella, the region’s premier sustainability alliance. Expensive as in increases in energy costs and insurance rates and higher prices passed down by businesses retrofitting operations to face a volatile climate. Painful as in an expansion north of diseases and invasive species heretofore contained in tropical zones. It’s already happening in the stream of Central Americans gathering at and crossing our southern border. And while you or even your kids may not be around to see 2100, the path between here and there will likely be disruptive, painful, and expensive in ways you haven’t contemplated.ĭisruptive as in the exponential problem of climate refugees-people forced to migrate because their homeland can no longer support food production. Previously the city’s energy manager, he’s been helping prepare city government for a future climate that will be warmer, wetter, and more extreme.Ĭincinnati’s average temperature is already almost 2 degrees higher than in the 1950s, says Forrester, and-unless things change-scientists believe we’re in for another increase of 4 to 6 degrees by the end of this century. “Climate change has shifted from being this nebulous could happen to it’s happening right now, and we see it in a real way,” says Michael Forrester, director of Cincinnati’s Office of Environment and Sustainability. But Mother Nature, like the COVID virus, doesn’t care about the politics. Some critics-most of them politically motivated-accuse science and scientists of perpetuating a hidden agenda.

Skeptics might call this scenario alarmist or even hysterical. Is this Cincinnati’s version of the Apocalypse? Maybe.

Instead, an imposing hillside towering over Columbia Parkway slides forward on a river of rain, turning into an avalanche of soil, trees, rocks, and million-dollar homes. People nearby say they hear a rumble and figure it’s thunder. It rains for hours that way and, at some point, the ground can take no more. Sump pumps are ineffective, and basements along the Mill Creek watershed begin to fill. Small streams jump their banks, turning backyards into lakes. It comes down in sheets of water so intense that those who’d run outside to welcome the respite are soon driven back inside. Some die.īut those clouds bring a bit of hope-until it starts raining. Others, with no air-conditioning, roast in their brick apartment buildings, unable to escape the relentless heat. People are staying in their homes, drawing their shades, hunkering down. The asphalt along Vine Street shimmers with fever, and Over-the-Rhine is as empty as it was during the dark days of COVID. A group of kids from Bond Hill fry an egg on the sidewalk and become the latest TikTok sensations. The sweat-soaked home plate umpire at a Reds game collapses. The sun’s been merciless the past three weeks, turning the air into a noxious mix of choking ozone and bludgeoning heat.Ī runway at CVG buckles. The clouds on the western horizon tease the promise of relief. Local leaders are working on strategies for both mitigation and adaptation. Source: John Stowell, C incinnati MagazineĮven though Cincinnati is far from the coasts and has been called a “climate haven,” threats from summer heat, winter warming, heavy rains, and flooding are real and growing.

Human apocalypse 2030