I don’t often use AI, but I made an exception over the weekend when severe storms were expected and schools announced closings for Monday. The report echoed weather reports of a few weekends ago, when 60 tornadoes (and the resulting 40 deaths) came close to us. Was this the new norm?
I couldn’t resist going to my computer and asking AI if this weather was unusual. Here is the AI response: “Yes, Chattanooga’s weather has a high risk of severe storms, including damaging winds, tornadoes, and large hail …” Unnerved, I asked a native Chattanoogan friend what she thought about our unusual weather.
“There was nothing like this growing up,” she said. “These severe storms and tornadoes are relatively recent. Same for Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi.”
When I murmured, “Climate change is real,” we both nodded in agreement.
Agreement that climate change is real is growing. Earlier this year, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication published results of a survey on global warming. The national average of believers in global warming is 72%. And 71% of those surveyed worry about the effects on future generations. Some may doubt that the global warming is caused by human action, but even before these storms, 75% of respondents supported funding research into renewable energy.