Ahead of schedule ...

Richmond, Vt., on Tuesday. Credit...Video by Gretchen Powers

Showing up early applies regarding the up and coming hellscape man is already experiencing in drips and drabs in the summer of 2023, which will be the warmest for planet earth until next year. When thinking about GW, Exxon and Shell, among significant others, comes to mind when they lied to us back in the 70s regarding GW as they knew fossil fuels, in their ability to generate copious amounts of Co2, when burned, would heat up the world with possible catastrophe results. Well, said results are beginning to happen, ahead of schedule.

LINCOLN, Vt. — The capital of Vermont — the state that often tops those “best states to move to and avoid climate change” lists — was, until Tuesday afternoon, mostly underwater.

Swollen by record-breaking rainfall, the Winooski River claimed nearly the entire downtown area of Montpelier late Monday. Swift-water rescue teams helped people escape from the upper floors of apartment buildings not far from the gold-domed State Capitol. Even the governor was forced to hike from his house on a snowmobile trail to reach an emergency response center in time to lead a news conference on the still unfolding disaster. By Wednesday morning, residents and business owners were stepping through the mud caking their front steps and basements to assess how much they had lost.

As the world heats up, our benchmarks are becoming increasingly useless — as useless as the notion that there are any places to move to and avoid climate change. Americans suffer from a longstanding delusion, a hangover of sorts from the Manifest Destiny era, that there will always be some corner of our vast country to escape to. Its 21st-century form is the notion that one can just pick up stakes and move somewhere else to get away from all this quickening climatic chaos.

It's different now ...