Fires, floods and storms: America’s ‘permanent emergency’ has begun
This summer of climate horror feels like the ‘first, vertiginous 15 minutes of a disaster movie’, says The New York Times

Apocalypse Right Now would be an apt title for it, said Maureen Dowd in The New York Times. This summer of climate horror feels like the “first, vertiginous 15 minutes of a disaster movie”.
It began with the hottest June in recorded history: temperature records were smashed not just in hot spots like Death Valley (54.4°C), but in such mild locales as British Columbia (49.6°C) and Seattle (42.2°C). That was followed by supercharged rain storms which created massive flooding in central Europe and China, turning streets into raging rivers.
And now we’ve got forest fires ravaging Siberia – Siberia, for heaven’s sake – Canada and the Pacific Northwest, where Oregon’s Bootleg Fire has so far consumed a staggering 400,000 acres of woodland, in a blaze so intense it has its own weather system – including lightning storms that start more fires. The inferno has also created a continent-wide plume of smoke now reddening sunsets and making it hard to breathe as far away as New York.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Wildfires have long been a part of California’s forest environment, said Gary Yohe on The Hill, but their extent and number has hugely increased in recent years. Nine of the ten largest have occurred since 2012. The August Complex Fire which broke out in August 2020 became the largest in California history, quickly followed by four more fires which became the third, fourth, fifth and sixth largest: they were still blazing in October. And now the Dixie Fire raging in California could dwarf them all.
The probability that this accelerated pattern of outbreaks is due to anything other than climate change is minuscule. That’s the one consolation of this “catastrophic summer”, said Sofia Andrade on Slate. More and more people now perceive “the existential threat the climate crisis poses”. The dire scenarios climate scientists projected for 2030 or 2040 are “already here”.
In fact, the scientists now wonder if their computer models of climate change have been too conservative by an order of magnitude, said Andrew Freedman on Axios.com. The Pacific Northwest heatwave which killed almost 200 people and melted power lines in Portland, Oregon with mind-blowing temperatures of 46.6°C, was “so far from the norm”, it has led experts to re-evaluate what’s possible. For example, one phenomenon climate models didn’t foresee is a “stuck” jet stream, which instead of moving weather around, locks in rain storms, heatwaves, hurricanes and droughts for extended periods.
The outcomes of such a disaster has been made worse by climate change, said Ilan Kelman in The Washington Post, but the disasters themselves have “more to do with humans carelessly getting in nature’s way rather than with nature itself”. Natural fires as well as prescribed burns are actually needed to cleanse forests of dry timber; the big human mistake is to build housing in woodsy fire zones. Cities need to build walls and new drainage tunnels to limit damage from surging rivers and rising seas. And places like Portland need to set up cooling shelters to protect the elderly and vulnerable in heatwaves.
“Adaptation” has long been a “dirty word” to eco-activists, said David Wallace-Wells on NYMag.com. They see it as surrendering the fight to decarbonise society and halt global warming. But this summer’s “freakish showcases of climate horror” expose that as a false choice. Efforts to replace fossil fuels must accelerate dramatically, but it would be “criminal to fail to focus on managing climate change”, now that summer has become a mass-casualty event. People are already suffering and dying in 47°C heat, biblical floods and decades-long droughts. We need to help them. The “permanent emergency” has begun.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Liverpool's Anfield redemption: how did they do it?
Talking Point Arne Slot's blueprint and standout player performances guide the Reds to record 20th league title
By Rebekah Evans, The Week UK
-
Codeword: April 29, 2025
The Week's daily codeword puzzle
By The Week Staff
-
Crossword: April 29, 2025
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff
-
The worst coral bleaching event breaks records
The Explainer Bleaching has now affected 84% of the world's coral reefs
By Justin Klawans, The Week US
-
Why UK scientists are trying to dim the Sun
In The Spotlight The UK has funded controversial geoengineering techniques that could prove helpful in slowing climate change
By Abby Wilson
-
Electric ferries are becoming the next big environmental trend
Under the Radar From Hong Kong to Lake Tahoe, electric ferries are the new wave
By Justin Klawans, The Week US
-
Ukraine is experiencing an 'ecocide' and wants Russia to pay
Under the radar The environment is a silent victim of war
By Devika Rao, The Week US
-
How wild horses are preventing wildfires in Spain
Under The Radar The animals roam more than 5,700 hectares of public forest, reducing the volume of combustible vegetation in the landscape
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
-
Scientists invent a solid carbon-negative building material
Under the radar Building CO2 into the buildings
By Devika Rao, The Week US
-
Dozens of deep-sea creatures discovered after iceberg broke off Antarctica
Under the radar The cold never bothered them anyway
By Devika Rao, The Week US
-
Earth's climate is in the era of 'global weirding'
The Explainer Weather is harder to predict and more extreme
By Devika Rao, The Week US