In the midst of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, EPA Director, Scott Pruitt, said we shouldn’t talk about climate change.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
Since becoming EPA Director, Pruitt has been busy rooting out climate change scientists at the EPA for dismissal, scrubbing its website of any studies supporting climate change and rolling back Obama Administration measures designed to address those issues.
While Trump’s FEMA Director appears to be doing a credible job in supplying relief to Houston, Florida and other parts of the nation hit by the storm, Trump, Pruitt and even some of the state officials in the hardest hit areas seem to be putting their residents at risk of future weather catastrophes by taking measures that would reduce the effects of unchecked climate change.
Scientists were nearly unanimous in their conclusion that while global warming did not cause Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, it worsened them.
The rise in water temperatures in the Gulf by as little as four degrees created pressure cooker conditions for the ingredients of the storms, i.e. extreme winds, rainfall and storm surge.
The increase in the water temperatures are unquestionably the result of greenhouse gases, the largest of which is carbon dioxide.
The gases are caused by many everyday activities but the two largest producers are industry and transportation.
The result is global warming which results in rising sea levels causing the polar ice caps to thaw, longer and more damaging wildfires, more frequent and intense heat waves, increased air pollution, greater flooding and more severe droughts.
Earlier this year, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate accords in which most of the world joined and agreed to take steps to combat climate change and reduce global warming.
He was encouraged to do this by Pruitt and other Administration officials in his administration including alt=right advisers, Steve Bannon Stephen Miller and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
Perry’s inclusion in the climate change denial faction seems almost incomprehensible.
One would think that as a former Texas Governor, whose state has been ravaged by storms and hurricanes as recently as Hurricane Harvey, he would be conversant with the science of climate change and global warming if only to learn what Texas should be vigilant about .
Yet, southern governors with large swaths of coastal land and beaches seen particularly resistant to learning those facts that might avert repeated catastrophes.
Florida Governor, Rick Scott, dismantled the Florida Energy and Climate Commission, walked away from his predecessor’s initiatives to protect the coastlines and forbade state scientists and employees from using the phrase “climate change.”
Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, like Rick Perry is a climate change denier.
Indeed, he has plenty of company in Texas.
Both Texas Senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn along with almost the entire Republican congressional delegation from that state voted against supplying aid to New Jersey, Connecticut and other northeastern states to repair and rebuild following Hurricane Sandy in 2012, contending that the assistance was “pork.”
In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma they have shown no compunction about bellying up to the trough with their hands out for disaster aid.
Fortunately, members of the congressional delegations from the northeast are a forgiving lot and have voted for the aid package proposed by the Trump Administration.
At this writing, the Trump Administration is steadfast in its withdrawal from the Paris Climate agreement.
Apparently, neither he nor anyone around him has stopped to consider that if global warming continues unchecked, large parts of the world, especially near the equator, could be rendered uninhabitable leading to a large migration of (gasp!) refugees.
Scott Pruitt continues to shill for the oil and gas industry as he guts every program and regulation designed to ameliorate global warming.
Governors Abbott, Scott and their congressional delegations will continue to beg for their disaster relief while putting their heads back into the ground at the same time Trump continues to rant and tweet that the “concept of global warming was made by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing Non-competitive.”
We will be expected to foot the bill for all of these “fake” storms and hurricanes until something occurs to alter Trump& Co.’s views on the matter.
It might require Mar-A-Lago being swept out to sea.
We can only hope and pray.