Harvey and Irma were nobody’s friends, but they might turn out to be friends of the climate. In the long run. In a rather backward way.
According to The New York Times, extreme weather is beginning to create cracks—barely discernible cracks—in the Republican Party’s smoothly polished cliff of climate denial and inaction.
No, not many Republicans in Washington are proposing climate mitigation policies. Not many are admitting climate change exists—or, if it exists, that carbon fuels are the cause of it. But they’re at least interested in improving resiliency against extreme weather events. What a step!
Meanwhile, Democrats such as investor Tom Steyer are threatening to link Republican politicians in states such as Florida and California with powerful hurricanes and raging wildfires. According to the paper of record, Steyer thinks that “the ‘human tragedy’ of climate change [will become] a permanent feature of politics.” Crass and opportunistic? Sure!
But again, most national Republicans are sticking to the party line: Only God controls the weather. EPA head Scott Pruitt says that even discussing climate change amid weather disasters is “very, very insensitive” to the victims. Poor Pruitt, with his delicate feelings. He sheds a chaste tear for every Texan or Floridian who, wearing galoshes in what used to be the baby room, hears hateful climate talk spewing from the battery-powered radio.
Like I said, the cracks are barely perceptible.
Publication Name: The New York Times
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Topics: Climate Change, What We’re Reading
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