Washington (GGM) Analysis | May 7, 2021 by Michael Wells

Waterspouts can suck marine life out of the ocean and toss it onto land. And waterspouts can do the same thing with hazardous chemicals on the ocean floor such as 27,000+ barrels of DDT recently discovered off the coast of Los Angeles. Fortunately, this has not happened yet, but it certainly could especially since more and more waterspouts are popping up all over the world due to an increase in severe weather caused by climate change. Any potential calamity climate change may (will) create is not a “what if?” question. The better questions to ask are “how bad?” and “when?”

Heart of the matter. Every week new stories come out about toxic chemicals that if somehow dislodged will kill people, destroy wildlife, wreck plantlife, and otherwise decimate ecosystems. Often these chemicals do cause the problems predicted. 

Whether it be forest fires in California, toxic algae in Florida, Superfund sites throughout the United States (Hanford Superfund site in particular), Camp Jejune poisonous water, Keystone Pipeline, and other things that are unknown, calamities are everywhere. Most recently, a previously unknown future source of calamity emerged. Specifically, tens of thousands of barrels of DDT dumped off the coast of Catalina Island were discovered. 

On the other side of the Pacific, Tokyo Bay now has coral growing in it, something previously unthinkable because the water was not warm enough. 

In the Great Lakes, 2020 was known as “Great Waterspout Outbreak of 2020.” Forty-one waterspouts popped up in Lake Erie in one day alone. In Louisiana, in 2020, 5 waterspouts occurred in one place. While these events may appear unrelated, they are, in fact, quite related because they are either caused by climate change or they exacerbate problems both known and unknown related to climate change.

How this impacts you personally. The skeptic will argue waterspouts have been discussed for hundreds of years, long before climate change was a huge issue, and they are not a climate change problem. Waterspouts are not new, but one thing is certain: Severe weather will only get worse with climate change, and, regardless of whether that causes more waterspouts, a largely warm water phenomenon, do you really want waterspouts blowing tanks of DDT out of the water in Southern California and smashing them against the rocky coastline? 

Just to give an example of how bad DDT is for the environment, 25% of California’s adult sea lions have cancer largely due to pollution from waste dumped by Montrose Chemical. Montrose dumped the DDT off the coast of Los Angeles. This is in addition to a 34-mile stretch of toxic chemicals dropped in the ocean, which is designated a Superfund site. 

The point of all of this is: whether it be waterspouts blowing toxic waste, leaking nuclear waste, or whatever other disaster waiting to happen, climate change marches on affecting all of us no matter what we believe. Literally and figuratively it is “pick your poison.”

What you can do. Of course this sounds bleak because it is. We live in a time where life is like the opening montage of an apolocapolitic movie. But all is not lost (not yet). We can still reduce our carbon footprint by consuming less plastic, planting trees, taking reusable bags with us to the store, and other little things along the way. These small steps can make a huge difference.

Next Steps

• Examine and lessen your plastic use; 
• Read about ways you can reduce your carbon footprint (you are doing that here);
• Care about the environment even when you think stories are from far away places that do not affect you because everything is connected; and
• Contact your state, local, and federal officials, and tell them you care about climate change.

Waterspouts, DDT, dead sea lions, and coral in Tokyo Bay should concern everyone because they are symptoms of a planet in a climate crisis. There are multiple “canaries in the coal mine,” and they are singing loudly, begging us to do something before we are all wiped out. 

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