The year 2022 will be remembered across the U.S. for its devastating flooding and storms – and also for its extreme heat waves and droughts.

By October, the U.S. had already seen 15 disasters causing more than US$1 billion in damage each, well above the average. The year started with widespread severe winter storms from Texas to Maine, affecting tens of million of people and causing significant damages. Then, March set the record for the most reported tornadoes in the month – 233.

During a period of five weeks over the summer, five 1,000-year rainfall events occurred in St. Louis, eastern Kentucky, southern Illinois, California’s Death Valley and Dallas, causing devastating and sometimes deadly flash floods. Severe flooding in Mississippi knocked out Jackson’s troubled water supply for weeks. A historic flood in Montana, brought on by heavy rain and melting snow, forced large areas of Yellowstone National Park to be evacuated.

In the fall, hurricanes Ian and Fiona deluged Florida and Puerto Rico with over 2 feet (6.6 meters) of rain in areas and deadly, destructive storm surge. Ian became one of the most expensive hurricanes in U.S. history. And a typhoon pounded 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the Alaska coast.

While too much rainfall threatened some regions, extreme heat and too little precipitation worsened risks elsewhere.

Persistent heat waves lingered over many parts of the country, setting temperature records. Wildfires raged in Arizona and New Mexico on the background of a megadrought in the Southwestern U.S. more severe than anything the region has experienced in at least 1,200 years.

Drought also left the Mississippi River so low near Memphis in the fall that barges couldn’t get through without additional dredging and upstream water releases. That snarled grain shipping during the critical harvest period. Along the Colorado River, officials discussed even tighter water use restrictions as water levels neared dangerously low levels in the major reservoirs.

The United States was hardly alone in its climate disasters.

In Pakistan, record monsoon rains inundated more than one-third of the country, killing over 1,500 people. In India and China, prolonged heat waves and droughts dried up rivers, disrupted power grids and threatened food security for billions of people. Widespread flooding and mudslides brought on by torrential rains also killed hundreds of people in South Africa, Brazil and Nigeria.

In Europe, heat waves set record temperatures in Britain and other parts of the continent, leading to severe droughts, low river flows that slowed shipping, and wildfires in many parts of the continent. Much of East Africa is still in the grips of a multiyear drought – the worst in over 40 years, according to the United Nations – leaving millions of people vulnerable to food shortages and starvation.

This isn’t just a freak year: Such extreme events are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity.

Climate change is intensifying these disasters

The most recent global climate assessment from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found significant increases in both the frequency and intensity of extreme temperature and precipitation events, leading to more droughts and floods.

Extreme flooding and droughts are also getting deadlier and more expensive, despite an improving capacity to manage climate risks, a study published in 2022 found. Part of the reason is that today’s extreme events, enhanced by climate change, often exceed communities’ management capabilities.

Extreme events, by definition, occur rarely. A 100-year flood has a 1% chance of happening in any given year. So when such events occur with increasing frequency and intensity, they are a clear indication of a changing climate state.

Climate models showed these risks were coming

Much of this is well understood and consistently reproduced by climate models.

As the climate warms, a shift in temperature distribution leads to more extremes. For example, globally, a 1 degree Celsius increase in annual average temperature is associated with a 1.2 C to 1.9 C (2.1 Fahrenheit to 3.4 F) increase in the annual maximum temperature.

In addition, global warming leads to changes in how the atmosphere and ocean move. The temperature difference between the equator and the poles is the driving force for global wind. As the polar regions warm at much higher rates than the equator, the reduced temperature difference causes a weakening of global winds and leads to a more meandering jet stream.

Some of these changes can create conditions such as persistent high-pressure systems and atmospheric blocking that bring more intense heat waves. The heat domes over the Southern Plains and South in June and in the West in September were both examples.

Warming can be further amplified by positive feedbacks.

For example, higher temperatures tend to dry out the soil, and less soil moisture reduces the land’s heat capacity, making it easier to heat up. More frequent and persistent heat waves lead to excessive evaporation, combined with decreased precipitation in some regions, causing more severe droughts and more frequent wildfires.

Higher temperatures increase the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture at a rate of about 7% per degree Celsius. This increased humidity leads to heavier rainfall events.

In addition, storm systems are fueled by latent heat – the large amount of energy released when water vapor condenses to liquid water. Increased moisture content in the atmosphere also enhances latent heat in storm systems, increasing their intensity. Extreme heavy or persistent rainfall leads to increased flooding and landslides, with devastating social and economic consequences.

Even though it’s difficult to link specific extreme events directly to climate change, when these supposedly rare events occur with greater frequency in a warming world, it is hard to ignore the changing state of our climate.

The new abnormal

This year might provide a glimpse of our near future, as these extreme climate events become more frequent.

To say this is the “new normal,” though, is misleading. It suggests that we have reached a new stable state, and that is far from the truth. Without serious effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, this trend toward more extreme events will continue.

This updates an article originally published on Sept. 21, 2022.

Shuang-Ye Wu, Professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Presidential elections are complicated. But in a move aimed at warding off future crises like the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Senate and House have passed legislation to clarify ambiguous and trouble-prone aspects of the process.

Currently, all 50 states and the District of Columbia hold simultaneous elections in November. The states and the district certify those results.

But that’s not the end of it.

When people cast votes, they’re actually voting for a group of people called “electors.” Groups of these presidential electors meet in December. They send their votes along to Congress, which counts them in January. The presidential candidate who gets the majority of electoral votes is, finally, declared the winner.

There are known weaknesses in these rules for how we administer presidential elections and tabulate results in Congress. Ambiguities in existing law have been exploited to try to make something go wrong. Legal theories were floated by allies of President Donald Trump after the 2020 election that suggested ways to undermine the results of the election, culminating in a failed insurrection at the Capitol.

That’s why a bipartisan group of congressional leaders aimed to pass reforms to the 1887 law governing this process, the Electoral Count Act, before the end of 2022.

As an election law scholar, I have suggested that Congress focus its reforms on a few crucial areas that could have wide bipartisan support. Now, it has done just that, and the omnibus government funding legislation that includes the Electoral Count Act reform passed the House on Dec. 23 and heads to the White House for President Joe Biden’s expected signature.

Discouraging mischief

The legislation, known as the Electoral Count Reform Act, was originally a stand-alone bill but was ultimately incorporated into the omnibus spending bill just passed by Congress. The reform legislation went through extensive public vetting and had broad bipartisan support.

It does many small things, but it does a few big things that deserve public attention for their ability to deter mischief in this important process.

I testified at a Senate committee hearing on the legislation at the invitation of two co-sponsors of the bill, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri. I have also spoken with members of Congress about its importance.

Here are the four major reforms in the bill:

1. Clarifies that Election Day is Election Day

Right now, presidential elections take place on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But existing law also allows states to choose presidential electors on a later date if they “failed to make a choice” on that day. This provision was designed in the mid-19th century for the few states that held runoff elections if no candidate received a majority. But no state uses it for that purpose today.

The provision leaves an open question: When has a state “failed to make a choice”? Some advocates in 2020 suggested that abstract questions about voter fraud or absentee ballots constituted such a failure and therefore meant the state could choose electors at a later date. That raised the prospect that states might send two sets of electors to Congress, a slate for the candidate who carried the popular vote and another slate, chosen later by the legislature. And that would invite Congress to undermine the popular election results by counting the second set of electoral votes.

Congress has closed that door in the Electoral Count Reform Act. There will be one day of choosing electors, with no possibility of a later choice. And state legislatures cannot show up after the election and attempt to change the rules – the bill mandates that state rules for how the election is run must be on the books before Election Day.

Ensures timely, accurate appointment of electors

In past years, especially in 2020, disputes about which votes should or should not have been counted raged on for weeks after Election Day. A federal court in Pennsylvania, for instance, rejected a lawsuit claiming that hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election should be thrown out because counties processed them differently from one another. The Electoral Count Reform Act creates a firm date for states to certify election results. Creating a firm deadline ensures a speedy end to any litigation.

Some Trump supporters in 2020 attempted to file rogue paperwork purporting to represent an alternative slate of electoral votes from a particular state. The act limits such mischief through expedited judicial review and clear obligations for state officials to submit accurate results to Congress. It requires state election officials to certify only the result that matches the outcome of the election held on Election Day, and nothing else. The act ensures that there is one true set of returns from the states.

Raises objection threshold

When Congress meets on Jan. 6 to count electoral votes, it is typically a ceremonial act. But since the 2000 presidential election, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have objected or attempted to object to counting at least some electoral votes cast in presidential elections. Debate ensued, both in 2005 and 2021, which forced the chambers to separate and conduct two hours of debate over whether to count electoral votes.

To open debate currently requires just one member of each house of Congress to object. The act raises the objection threshold to one-fifth of the members, based on the principle that only under the most extreme circumstances should Congress consider refusing to count electoral votes.

It is simply too easy under the existing rules to cause mischief and turn this ceremony into an airing of grievances. Raising the threshold makes it harder to slow down counting and increases public confidence by refusing to give attention to baseless objections.

Defines vice president’s power

In 2021, Trump publicly and privately pressured Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes during the joint session of Congress. Pence would not do what Trump wanted, arguing he had no power to do so.

The act clarifies that the role of the president of the Senate – typically, the vice president – is ceremonial. The language is updated to reflect what is already known – the vice president has no unilateral power to determine whether to count electoral votes.

While some of these concerns have been around for many years, they have come to prominence only in recent years, and none more so than around the violent insurrection that took place when Congress last counted electoral votes.

With these simple bipartisan solutions, Congress has instilled confidence in future presidential elections.

This article has been updated to reflect congressional passage of the legislation to reform the Electoral Count Act.

Derek T. Muller, Professor of Law, University of Iowa

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The holidays are a time for family, connection and love. Family traditions are an important component of the holiday season. They are constant and reliable. They allow us to slow down and be in the moment, appreciate each other and express gratitude.

The holidays are happy times where generations and families come together to share time with and show generosity to one another. These are particularly important experiences in childhood, when we are starting to understand relationships and how the world works.

These special times together — laughing, squabbling, playing — allow us to be part of something larger than ourselves. To love and feel loved. They create memories we can take with us and provide children with a sense of security.

It also allows us to look forward to something enjoyable. Family traditions allow an opportunity to share the love we have for each other and recognize the importance of being together.

Love is important

Love is the greatest gift we can give our children. The opportunity to be seen, heard and understood and to feel valued, worthy and special is invaluable to their holistic development.

Childhood experiences impact who we become and how we understand relationships and the world. They live under our skin for our whole lives, creating patterns which can be difficult (but not impossible) to change.

Children are constantly evolving, forming ideas, making connections and developing relationships with the most important people in their lives. These relationships impact their development, neurology, the way they interpret and understand themselves and their experiences throughout their lives.

Knowing who your child is and what they love allows you to see their future self and build experiences to support their development. These opportunities to feel seen and known are important for your child’s sense of belonging in the family, within themselves and in the world. They will learn who they truly are, what makes them unique and perhaps share their beautiful sparkle as part of the family tradition.

Holiday struggles

There can be a lot of pressure and stress during the holidays.

Parents can feel overwhelmed by holiday preparations and expectations — especially if they are back in their childhood home or with their parents and siblings. These experiences may bring back old patterns of behaviours from their own childhoods.

Parents might unintentionally be less sensitive toward their children and respond more impulsively based on their own unconscious experiences, resulting in unanticipated expectations or responses from the child’s perspective.

Family gatherings and events can also cause us to feel like we need to be perfect or provide perfect experiences. This added pressure is often externalized to children because parents feel judged based on their children’s behaviour and engagement. This is not fair to children, who do not understand the nuances of complex social situations, patterns and family history.

For the child, it might feel like dad or mom is less available or responds sharply and quickly, in a way that is not typical of them. Creating time and space to share feelings will help your child to understand the environment, while reinforcing that the love you share is secure, stable and constant.

Setting expectations

Parenting is difficult. We are often consumed by shame and guilt when things go wrong, believing we should know how to do it naturally.

We tend to parent the way we were parented because parenting is intergenerational and lives under our skin the same way our childhood experiences do. If we grew up in a family that felt emotionally secure, safe and loving, we will likely create secure, trusted relationships. Early experiences impact who we become and how we understand the world.

Creating safe, secure, loving environments and being present with your children is the greatest gift you can give. Creating boundaries and setting expectations is important for helping children feel in control of themselves and their environment.

Addressing an upset

If there is an upset, have an age-appropriate conversation with your child to talk about what happened and why you were upset. It’s important for children to understand what occurred and what they have done.

Without clarity, the child is left to interpret the situation from their own limited perspective. They may create an unintended association, such as associating getting in trouble with expressing their feelings, when the consequence was to teach them about how to use their words and not throw things in the house when upset.

The parent privately sharing their feelings and experiences helps the child understand their upset feelings and provide healthy and safe alternatives for expressing and sharing their feelings.

The parent may also find balance in this reflection by spending time together, cuddling, talking, drawing and playing. The child can process their emotions and experiences while connecting and reconciling, which will make everyone feel cozy in a space of security, trust and love.

Creating secure relationships

Moments of reconciliation create secure loving connections and become a child’s internal model. This model becomes ingrained within them, affecting their holistic development, positively impacting who they become and how they understand themselves, relationships and the world.

Forming secure connections positively affects a child’s self-esteem, confidence, organizational skills, emotional and social skills and school performance. It affects everything in a child’s life because they learn to self-regulate, develop empathy, deal with emotions and conflict and take care of themselves. They learn they can manage the unknown by learning perseverance and resilience. They learn they matter, are valued, worthwhile and loved.

Family traditions and being present provide children with trusted, safe, secure, loving experiences and relationships that are important for their healthy development and future self. They are the greatest gift you can give your child.

This is love in action — the ripple effect that will last a lifetime.

Nikki Martyn, Program Head of Early Childhood Studies, University of Guelph-Humber

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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