First All-Weather NBA Final: Heat Vs. Thunder

Starting tonight, the NBA Finals, will, for the first time, feature two weather phenomena battling it out.

Or, as a friend put it, “This is the first climate-change-sensitive championship showdown in NBA history.”

In truth, I lost interest in the outcome of the NBA playoffs after Linsanity ended, and the Knicks bombed out. Given how folks feel about “King” James outside of sea-level-rise threatened Miami — he’s only one percentage point more popular than Governor Rick Scott in Florida (who, incidentally, abolished the Florida Energy & Climate Commission that was responsible for overseeing the state’s adaptation plan) — most folks will probably be rooting against the Heat. And that’s an apt foreshadowing of what most Americans will be doing every summer in the coming decades assuming we don’t start slashing greenhouse gas emissions soon.

Of course, that would mean they are rooting for the Thunder, which has its own climatological ironies (and don’t get me started on Oklahoma — see “Oklahoma, Where the Senator Mocks the Deadly Heat Wave“).

Insured losses due to thunderstorms and tornadoes in the U.S. in 2011 dollars. Data and image from Property Claims Service, Munich Re.

May the strongest weather system win!