Climate change finally understood by most

Recently in Vancouver we endured yet another “atmospheric river,” described by some meteorologists as the “storm of the century,” creating huge flooding, wiping out houses and killing several people. A few days later experts warned of another river in the sky that might be coming. This pales in connection to the flooding in Spain where hundreds of people drowned. Floods, hurricanes, droughts and typhoons sweep the planet on an almost daily basis.

Floods in Spain have killed hundreds of people and created billions of dollars in damage.

In 2005 I was commissioned to research and write a book about climate change. The Man Who Made It Rain was about an extended drought in California that occurred in 1977–78 and the damage it caused, and what would happen in the future. In that book, 20 years ahead of its time, I predicted that by 2020 all hell would start to break loose around the world. The prologue to the book prophesized what was going to happen. Back in 2005 no one believed the predictions, nor what any old Hopi leaders had to say. In 2024 there are still those that deny that climate change is made by mankind. As Donald Trump would still say: “Drill baby drill.” But the prologue in my book had something different to say.

Sometime around 1930, according to old tribal lessons, several traditional Hopi Indian leaders crafted a message to the world. In effect, their message said that there was a rising danger that mankind’s lack of spiritual attention to the planet was going to lead to disaster.

The Hopi leaders said that this disaster would take the form of violent storms and trigger many forms of disruption that would eventually threaten all human beings. This had happened before, they warned, and all signs, including ancient prophecies, indicated it was going to happen again.

Their prophecy may be right. Since then, the air temperature in Alaska has risen seven degrees. Glaciers there are retreating at a rate of twenty feet per year. The arctic permafrost is melting. Climatologists estimate that in fifty years there will be no glaciers in Glacier National Park.

Over 20 years ago researchers and writers were warning about the storms that would hit the planet.

As glaciers around the world melt, the seas are starting to rise. Great storms batter the planet. Weather records of all sorts, whether of heat or cold, flood or drought, have been broken in every region of the world. Weather forecasters predict much more of the same in the future as the planet warms. — 2005

Enough said. That was 2005, or should I say 1930? Time, perhaps, to listen to experts and Indigenous people who managed to live in harmony with nature for up to 10,000 years without destroying their environment. A “lack of spiritual attention to the planet?” Well, yes, I guess so. Over to you, Donald.