Early school starts and global warming

The backlash against schools starting earlier and earlier is beginning. Standing alongside frustrated parents is the tourist industry, especially folks whose living depends on people spending their summer vacations at the beach. That's especially true in the South, both along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf coast. If little Johnny and Susie start school the first or second week of August, then that is doing serious damage to the beach economy, which has typically lasted from early May until September.
And we're not just thinking about a bunch of swells lounging in the sand.
In Alabama, for instance, beach visitors account for one-third of the state's $7.3 billion tourism industry. We're talking serious money, right?
But beach tourism is not only taking it in the, umm, shorts from schools that are inching up their calendars. Global warming may soon be rearranging when people go to the beach. Since we've been naming and tracking storms, there has never been a July like the one we just endured. Four named Atlantic storms this early is a record.
Scientists now believe that global warming may be the culprit for the increased number of storms.

"The large upswing in the last decade is unprecedented and probably reflects the effect of global warming," scientist Kerry Emanuel wrote in a study that will appear in the Thursday edition of the journal Nature.

What's more, there is reason to believe that along with greater hurricane frequency, global warming is making the storms more destructive.
If that's the case, a Memorial Day to Labor Day beach tourism season may be a thing of the past, with or without an early school start.