Climate change: Is this what it's going to be like?

I had plenty of time to cogitate yesterday as flooding extended my one-hour commute to three. Yes, three hours. Me and the blacktop.

I had intended to enjoy a good chunk of my current audio book. I'm on a major John Steinbeck jag, and I'm deep into East of Eden.

Instead, I kept switching to KYW and its traffic report, as if the Schuylkill Expressway were going to miraculously reopen.

But as I heard about the flooding, the highway closures, the commuter rail line shut-downs and even Kelly Drive buckling, I began to think about climate change. Is this what it's going to be like?

In all likelihood, yes.

Our infrastructure won't be done in by sea level rise creeping up the Delaware and flooding Penn's Landing. It will look more like this week's events.  With more rains, and more intense rains, the ground will get saturated and creeks will jump their banks.

So maybe it will be two times a year and then three and then five that the Schuylkill Expressway closes.  Will there be more mud slides? And how long will it be before a chunk of Kelly Drive -- or some other major road -- buckles so badly that the road has to be closed not for hours or days, but for months?

How long will it be before inconveniences of commuting become something more untenable?

Meanwhile, Gov. Corbett says that sewage treatment plants along the Susquehanna are overwhelmed and discharging raw sewage. "We face a public health emergency because sewage treatment plants are underwater and no longer working,'' Corbett said in a press release. "Flood water is toxic and polluted. If you don't have to be in it, keep out.''

As it happens, just the day before, on Wednesday, Climate Communication, a non-profit project dedicated to improving public understanding of climate change science, released a report showing that  "extreme events" -- including heavy downpours --  are occurring more frequently. It says that the ties to human-induced climate change are clear.

The report, "Current Extreme Weather and Climate Change," summarizes recent peer-reviewed scientific literature.

"There is now a pervasive human influence in all climate events," said Kevin Trenberth, Distinguished Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in a press release about the report. "Although sometimes small, this can be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

Speaking of which, on Sept. 14 The Climate Reality Project, founded and chaired by former Vice President and Al Gore, will host a 24-hour online event called 24 Hours of Reality.  Each hour, beginning at 8 p.m. our time, the focus turns to a new part of the globe. It begins in Mexico City and ends with Gore himself doing the presentation in New York City.

"Extreme droughts, terrible storms, and larger floods are devastating many parts of the world," said  Gore in a press release. "Yet around the world, we are still subjected to polluter-financed misinformation and propaganda designed to mislead people about the dangers we face from the unfolding climate crisis."

"The time to face reality is now," he said. "24 Hours of Reality will bridge oceans and cultures — in every time zone — to bring the world together to emphasize the truth about the climate crisis and how we can solve it."

All this made for a depressing drive. Eventually, I turned back to East of Eden, where poor Adam Trask seems headed for a storm of his own, what with that horrible wife, Cathy.