Climate change: more conclusive evidence, it seems

There are five headlines right now, concerning Russia and their record-setting heat and fires: --Fires Rage Across Russia Amid Record Heat Forest fires raged across Russia on Friday, destroying villages, surrounding one southern city and killing at least 25 people, including three firefighters. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin consoled survivors at one smoldering village and urged officials to redouble their efforts against the blazes. The fires have spread quickly across more than 200,000 acres (90,000 hectares) in recent days after a record heat wave and severe drought. July has been the hottest month in Moscow in 130 years of recorded history. Fields and forests have dried up, and much of this year's wheat harvest has been ruined. --Russia Bans Grain Exports Amid Drought, Fires Russia banned grain exports for the rest of the year on Thursday after a severe drought and wildfires destroyed 20 percent of its wheat crop. The price of wheat, which has already jumped 70 percent on world markets this summer, rallied further on the news. --Russia Moves Rockets As Wildfires Spread A Russian military garrison near Moscow moved all its artillery rockets to a safer location as wildfires advanced in the region, the government said Thursday. Col. Alexei Kuznetsov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press that the garrison near Naro-Fominsk, 70 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Moscow, was not in immediate danger. But the decision to move the explosive materiel underlined the challenges posed by the hundreds of fires raging in Russia after weeks of intense heat and drought. A wildfire leapt into a Russian naval air base outside Moscow last week, causing substantial damage; Russian media reported as many as 200 planes may have been destroyed. Kuznetsov did not give details of where the rockets were moved to, or when the operation occurred. --Russia Bans Grain Exports Amid Severe Drought Worst smog yet hits Moscow, planes are diverted To minimize further damage, Russian workers have evacuated explosives from military facilities and were sending planes, helicopters and even robots to help control blazes around the country's top nuclear research facility in Sarov, 300 miles (480 kilometers) east of Moscow. A wildfire leapt into a Russian naval air base outside Moscow last week, causing substantial damage. Russian media reported as many as 200 planes may have been destroyed. The forecast for the week ahead, with temperatures approaching 38 C (100 F), shows little change in Moscow and surrounding regions, where the average summer temperature is around 23 (75). What further proof do we need that climate change--or whatever you want to call it--is real? At what point do we do something about this and about how we live so we reduce the effects this is already having on us, how we live and how we may exist into the future? Already, now, it's affecting Russia's food supply and it's defensive weapons. It's affecting its security. How long until it affects other country's security? How long until it affects ours?