Sometimes there's too much water; sometimes not enough. A major challenge with global heating is that it doesn't necessarily cause more or less of something in a specific geographic area (hotter, colder; wetter, dryer); it just makes everything less predictable and often more extreme.

Consider some late-summer headlines. Pakistan "faces 'monsoon on steroids' as more flood warnings issued." In Spain, "Historic monuments resurface as severe drought shrinks reservoirs." Melting Greenland ice is "set to raise sea levels by nearly a foot." In Jackson, Mississippi, the "water system is failing, city will be with no or little drinking water indefinitely." Also in the U.S., "As Colorado River dries, the U.S. teeters on the brink of larger water crisis."

In rainy Vancouver where I live, overall precipitation is expected to increase by a small amount, but more intense rain is expected in shorter periods, especially during fall and winter.

Water scarcity - as well as contamination - is a looming issue. As glaciers recede on a heating planet, less water will make it to rivers, lakes and reservoirs. Many areas get hit with torrential rains after prolonged drought, which causes problems from runoff to crop and tree destruction.

This planet has evolved complex, interconnected cycles that together make human and other life possible - among them, the carbon, hydrologic (i.e., water), nitrogen and oxygen cycles. Burning coal, oil and gas - and disrupting or destroying natural carbon sinks like forests and wetlands - has affected the carbon cycle, heating the climate and changing the ways water flows in, on and around the world.

Impacts are evident everywhere: dams retooled as river and reservoir levels drop, entire countries almost submerged in rising floodwaters, cities without water, crops and livestock wiped out...

Yet, many continue to take water for granted, especially in the U.S. and Canada. And governments everywhere allow multinational corporations to suck up, bottle and sell it back to us as drinking water or sugary beverages. With so much development - urban, agricultural and industrial - people have created conditions for runoff, flooding and water waste. Agriculture, power from hydro, nuclear and fossil fuels, activities like fracking for gas, and producing consumer goods all use enormous amounts of water.

Again, we have many solutions. We can build bigger seawalls or start the process of "managed retreat" from coastlines. We can implement flood measures using natural features to capture, channel, store and drain water. We can engineer "drought-resistant" crops. We can shift to agricultural methods that hold water and soil together better. We can re-imagine plumbing systems to stop wasting potable water and to recycle valuable nutrients like nitrogen in urine.

We must do all these things. But until we tackle the root cause of all these interconnected, often complex changes, we'll see them become increasingly more frequent and severe.

We absolutely must ramp up efforts to slow and halt the climate crisis, which is bringing many interrelated tragedies in its wake, from species extinction to refugee crises to various water issues. Because the crises are connected, so too are the solutions. Shifting to renewable energy will not only lower carbon emissions, it will also reduce water use. A Food & Water Watch study found that by shifting to renewables, the U.S. could save 99 per cent of the water currently used in fossil fuel electricity generation and "virtually eliminate water withdrawals for electricity generation."

A recent study by global engineering and architecture services firm GHD found that the price of failing to address related climate and water issues could be staggering. "Aquanomics" predicts floods, droughts and storms could cost Canada's economy $139 billion over the next 30 years, with mounting damage to power, manufacturing and transportation infrastructure.

As the report title suggests, it's all about water. "Either we have too much water or not enough," the company's water lead, Don Holland, told CBC. "But really, when we talk about climate change, we experience it through water."

We're each about 60 per cent water. Water is life. We can't live without it. If we want to avoid worsening conflicts over this increasingly scarce necessity - and problems associated with its distribution, from floods to droughts - we must get off fossil fuels, reform agricultural practices and protect and restore natural areas.

Climate Week kicks off this week in New York City as more than 150 world leaders gather for the U.N. General Assembly and as Hurricane Fiona rips through Puerto Rico, Typhoon Nanmadol slams southern Japan, and Typhoon Merbok floods parts of western Alaska. We speak to climate scientist Michael Mann about how climate change has changed the pattern of tropical storms, and what needs to happen to address the crisis. He says rising global temperatures have worsened the effects of storms like these, and more aggressive climate legislation from Congress is needed. "We are experiencing devastating consequences of past climate inaction, and it really drives home the importance of taking action now," says Mann.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

You know, today marks the start of Climate Week here in New York City, where more than 150 world leaders are gathering for the United Nations General Assembly. Some of them are coming directly from the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, including President Biden, set to address the forum Wednesday, a day later than usual. On Thursday, the Barbados prime minister is set to speak about her proposal for a new financial settlement for vulnerable countries struggling to pay off debt from climate disasters. Governments are also facing pressure to address their pledges to end fossil fuel subsidies amid soaring energy bills.

Ahead of the 77th session of the U.N. General Assembly, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had this warning for world leaders.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES: Climate change seems to have moved out of the priorities for many decision makers around the world, and this is a suicide. We see emissions growing, and we see fossil fuels become fashionable again, when we know that fossil fuels are the main responsible for the progressive war against nature that we have been waging in our history.

To talk about all of this, we're joined by Michael Mann, the presidential distinguished professor and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. He's now at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet.

Professor Mann, welcome back to Democracy Now! I mean, you just heard the descriptions of Puerto Rico. We've got Japan, we've got Alaska, Pakistan a third underwater. Your response? What connects all of this? Explain what's happening.

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, Amy, I would say it's good to be with you, but we rarely have good news to discuss. And with these catastrophic events that we see playing out now in real time, we are witnessing the devastating consequences of climate change now. This isn't 10 years into the future. It's not way off in the Arctic. It's where we live now. We are experiencing devastating consequences of past climate inaction, and it really drives home the importance of taking action now.

You know, the physics isn't that difficult here. You make the planet warmer, you're going to get more heat. You're going to get more intense and more frequent heat waves, like we've seen this summer and every summer in recent history. You make the atmosphere warmer, it holds moisture, more moisture. So you get those flooding events. You get the sort of devastating flooding that we're seeing right now with these landfalling hurricanes. You make the soils warmer in the summer, you dry them out more, so you get more drought. And what we see out west, the heat, the drought combine to give us those devastating wildfires. And so, this isn't rocket science. The physics here is very basic, and it tells us that we're reaping what we've sown. We're now experiencing devastating climate impacts.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about right now what you feel needs to be done? And the significance of - I mean, you are a scientist. You were at Penn State, now you're at University of Pennsylvania. The way climate science was disparaged - now, I think, so much more embraced all over the world. But what has to happen at this moment, in the midst of Climate Week here in New York and right before the U.N. COP? What actually do countries have to commit to?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, you know, the worst thing that can happen to you as a climate scientist is that your predictions come true. And that's what we're seeing happen. And so, you know, those who used to deny the reality of climate change, they can't anymore, because, of course, we are all now seeing the impacts with our own two eyes. That doesn't mean they've given up. Polluters are still using every tool in the book - and that's what my book is about - to try to prevent the actions that are necessary.

So, what do we need to do? Look, we need to recognize we've made some real progress here. the Inflation Reduction Act here in the United States is by far the most comprehensive climate legislation that's ever passed the U.S. Congress. It starts to get us on the path that we need to be on to limit warming below a catastrophic 3 degrees Fahrenheit, where we see the worst consequences of climate change. It starts to get us on that path, but it doesn't quite get there, and so we need to go further. We need to reduce carbon emissions here in the United States by at least 50% by 2030. The IRA, Inflation Reduction Act, maybe gets us about 40%. So we've got to go further than that.

And look, right now the gatekeeper for climate legislation in the United States is a coal state Democrat, Joe Manchin. Only climate legislation that's approved by him can pass under these current sort of - in our current politics. That's why voters need to turn out in droves in these midterm elections, so we can get a large enough majority of climate advocates, Democrats and others who support climate action, in Congress, so that we can go further, so we can get more aggressive climate legislation passed, that will put a price on carbon, that will provide more subsidies for renewable energy, that will block new fossil fuel infrastructure. No less than the IEA, no cheerleader for renewable energy, has said that if we are to keep warming below that catastrophic level of 3 degrees Fahrenheit, there can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure. That means we can't continue to fund new pipeline projects as we're currently doing here in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Why is a Category 2 hurricane, like Fiona, that just swept through Puerto Rico - we don't even know the extent of the damage as it moves on to the Dominican Republic - causing so much damage in Puerto Rico compared to a Category 5 Hurricane Maria? Also, why - what's the significance of it appearing so late in hurricane season? And then, also, why the hurricane that has now - the typhoon that has hit Japan is considered like the worst in half a century? What is causing this?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, so, again, it's pretty basic. The warming of the oceans, the planet's warming up, the oceans are warming up, that means there's more energy. There's more evaporation from the oceans. And it's that evaporation that provides the energy to intensify those storms, and it's what provides them all of that moisture. And so we get stronger, more intense storms, and they contain a lot more rainfall in them, so we get much more flooding. And that's what we're seeing over time.

Now, the vagaries of any particular storm - we can't say this storm wouldn't have happened if not for climate change. What we can say is this particular storm was stronger, it was wetter, and it was more damaging than it would have been, because of climate change. We can make that direct link.

AMY GOODMAN: And the comparison of the Atlantic storms to the Pacific storms?

MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, this is a global - you know, the physics here don't respect individual ocean basins. Everywhere you go, warmer oceans mean more intense hurricanes or typhoons, as we call them over there, and worse flooding with these storms. And that's really what we're seeing here. And, you know, this is really just sort of the tip of the iceberg. The good news is we can prevent this all from getting worse if we bring those carbon emissions down, you know, as I said, 50% within the next decade, down to zero by mid-century. We can prevent further warming of the planet and worsening of these effects. But if we continue to burn fossil fuels, all of this only gets worse. This only becomes a glimpse of what is to come.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Mann, we thank you for being with us, presidential distinguished professor and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet.

(c) 2022 Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now,!" a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 750 stations in North America. She is the co"author of "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times," recently released in paperback and "Breaking The Sound Barrier."

A mere category 1 hurricane dumped so much water on Puerto Rico so quickly that one of its rivers has swollen to 25 feet above normal, even more than it rose during Hurricane Maria in 2017, which was a Category 5 hurricane. The island is beset by flash floods, and is getting 16-30 inches of rain. The usual average amount of rainfall received by Puerto Rico is 31 inches, so it is getting from six months' to a year's worth all at once in a single day. All power was knocked out, though the government is vowing to get it back on in days, not the months it took after Maria. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, though it is a territory and not a state. President Biden declared a state of emergency.

I've been to Puerto Rico several times and really like the place, and have friends there. I'm worried about them, and about its future. The thing that struck me is how devastating this storm has been even though it is "only" a Category 1, with wind speeds of 85 miles and hour.

The ocean around Puerto Rico is much warmer than it used to be, as is the air above the ocean. That is a double whammy. Hot air can absorb more moisture. Hot water causes more moisture to evaporate into the air. So there is just more water in the sky to fall on places like Puerto Rico than there used to be. Global sea surface heating over the past century has been an extra 1.3 degrees F. The rate of heating in the northeast Caribbean, though, has doubled over the past two decades. This heating could eventually push clouds higher, causing less frequent precipitation, but when it does rain it could be torrential. Occasional heavy rain is not good for agriculture, since it just runs off or causes floods.

Warming oceans are producing disasters throughout the globe. A third of Pakistan is still underwater after a super-monsoon caused epochal flooding, with 33 million people affected. 80% of the livestock is dead. Waterborne diseases are spreading among the displaced. And now 11 million people are food insecure.

New, unprecedented disasters are striking daily. Super-monsoon Nanmadol is headed for Japan, with the government ordering 8 million people to be evacuated. That is six percent of the country's population. It would be like evacuating 20 million Americans, moving everyone out of Florida or New York state. A super-typhoon has winds of 150 miles an hour and would be like a category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic. Nothing like that has hit Japan for decades. Tens of thousands are already without power and public transportation has been suspended in Kyushu.

A recent study found that human-caused climate change has already spurred the formation of stronger typhoons in the Pacific. An examination of the period 1979-2017 found that the likelihood of the formation of a super-typhoon has already increased because of warmer Pacific waters and warmer air over the ocean. In recent decades, the likelihood of the formation of a super-typhoon in the Pacific has increased 8% a year.

Last week, Typhoon Muifa, with sustained winds of 96 miles to 125 miles an hour, struck the Chinese city of Shanghai, which has 20 million residents. Some 13,000 fishing boats had to head for shelter. Shanghai is the world's biggest container port. There are reports of flooding and damage to buildings and infrastructure. It is the strongest storm to hit Shanghai in recorded history and forced 1.6 million people from their homes.

The oceans are being heated up by heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, spewed there by humans burning petroleum, coal, and fossil gas. We are only at the beginning of the age of the super-hurricane and the super-typhoon.