As I write this, there are three hurricanes working their way westward across the Atlantic. They are; Katia, Irma, and Jose. Irma, the one that appears to be the most deadly of the three at the moment, has maintained a sustained windspeed of 185 miles an hour for over 24 hours now, breaking all known records. While the eye of the Category-5 hurricane narrowly missed Puerto Rico, both St. Martin and Barbuda have, according to press reports, been decimated. And it looks as though the Turks and Caicos Islands are next, as the hurricane makes its way toward the Florida coast, where, according to some projections, it could do over $300 billion in damage.
While the destructive power of the hurricane may diminish before it hits Florida, I think it’s fair to say that, at least historically speaking, we shouldn’t be talking about a Category-5 hurricane hitting our coast just a few weeks after having a Category-4 hurricane hitting the same coast. I mean, if they were regular events, they wouldn’t call them “500 year” storms, right? But here we are, in the span of just three weeks, preparing for Hurricane Irma to pick up in Florida where Hurricane Harvey left off in Texas.
One would think, at some point, even in deep red states like Texas and Florida, people might begin to wonder why it is that, in spite of what climate change deniers might tell us, the oceans just keep getting warmer, and these once-in-a-generation weather events keep happening one after the other. I mean, the temperature in San Francisco just hit 106-degrees, forest fires are consuming Oregon, and here we are, preparing to see yet another American coastal city washed out to sea. You would think, at some point, people… especially those losing their homes… might stop worrying about the future of Confederate of monuments and begin to worry instead about the futures of their families. At some point, you would think, these people would have to start turning on those politicians like Senator Mitch McConnell, who, in spite of the evidence, has said, “For everybody who thinks it’s warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn’t,” and Donald Trump, who has claimed that climate change was nothing more than a “Chinese hoax.”
But, it would appear, we’re still not yet at the tipping point… One just wonders how many people have to die before we get there.
Trump, apparently not feeling any pressure from his supporters, just named Oklahoma Congressman Jim Bridenstine, a man who once demanded on the floor of the House that President Obama “apologize” to the American people for funding research into climate change, to be the head of NASA. And, today, of all places, he headed to North Dakota to stand in front of an oil refinery and tell those assembled before him that the drought they’ve been experiencing will simply go away. “We’re working hard on it, and it will disappear, it will all go away,” he told his assembles supporters, as the refinery behind him belched out smoke. In better times, I would have found the irony hilarious.
In a sane world, the whole lot of them – all the Republicans who have continued to lie about the science of climate change because it serves them politically – would be run out of D.C. on a rail, but here we are, clapping for our pussy-grabber-in-chief at an oil refinery as yet another hurricane prepares to hit out coast.
I think I’ve probably said it here before, but every climate denier should be held personally accountable for what happened a few weeks ago in Houston, what is likely going to happen tomorrow in Florida, and whatever happens next. They knew damn well what was happening, and they not only chose to do nothing, but they lied, and told people that there was nothing to worry about. They should not only be driven from office, but every one of them should be the subject of a class action suit… Every family who lost a loved one, or a home, should go after these men for damages, as they knowingly perpetuated a lie to serve the financial interests of their campaign donors.
I’m pretty sure I’ve told you this before, but I first became aware of climate change back in ’87, when I lived in Washington, DC. I remember distinctly attending a public event where scientists, politicians and lobbyists weighed in on the subject. (I remember that the lobbyist on the panel said that, even if global warming were true, we’d be able to invent our way out of it. “We’ll make bigger, better air conditioners,” he said, as thought that would somehow make everything alright.) That was 30 years ago, and the scientific evidence was already pretty clear. And who knows how much progress we could have made toward limiting our carbon output if we’d acted decisively back then. Instead, though, we kept propping up the oil and gas industry with subsidies, while fighting against renewables.
But, instead, we’re staring into the eye of Irma, waiting to find out just how many lives are forever ruined.
Paul Ryan said yesterday, “We’ve got another hurricane right now headed to our shores and it’s critical that we act immediately.” Of course, when he said it, he wasn’t referring to the root cause. He wasn’t talking about cutting carbon emissions, of passing a gas tax to encourage a shift to renewables, or an ambitious infrastructure initiative to public a state-of-the-art wind and solar grid across the United States. No, by “act immediately,” he meant “try to dodge the waves and flying debris.” And that’s what passes for leadership in the United States right now… Something has to change, and it has to happen quickly, if humanity is to survive.
