Who Are You Going to Believe on Climate Change — Politicians Who Ignore Research or the Weatherman?
Earlier this month, I had the privilege of sitting on a panel with the venerable meteorologist Tom Skilling, who has served as the “weatherman” on WGN-TV for decades. There is probably no more beloved or trusted media figure in Chicago.
So, when Tom devotes a presentation to the changes in weather that he’s observed in recent years, any audience should all sit up and take notice. I know I did. Incidentally, Tom Skilling doesn’t have a partisan bone in his body. Nobody knows if he’s a Republican or Democrat.
While Tom’s videos of shrinking glaciers in Alaska and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico were very compelling, one only needs to read this summer’s headlines to know that we’ve entered a whole new meteorological phase:
* As near-record heat ramped up in the northwestern U.S., wildfires and poor air quality continued to mount. Seattle and Portland could meet or exceed record high temperatures.
* Death Valley in California is on track to set the record for the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. Meanwhile, the Ferguson Fire forced Yosemite National Park to close at the peak of the tourist season.
* Persistent rainfall and flash flooding have plagued other parts of the country. State College, Pennsylvania experienced its heaviest July rainfall since 1893. Madison, Wisconsin, also faced historic floods.
And it’s not just the U.S.:
* Unprecedented heat led to a wildfire outbreak in Scandinavia, and record highs have been set this summer all across the Arctic Circle. Heat records have also fallen in Ireland and France. The U.K. is suffering through one of its driest periods on record. Wildfires outside of Athens in Greece killed at least 84 people.
* 22 cities in China had their hottest July on record. South Korea set its all-time high temperature record on August 1st. Japan set a national temperature record of 106 degrees Fahrenheit in a heat wave that followed deadly floods.
* The ongoing drought in Cape Town has been so severe that South Africa’s second-largest city is in danger of running out of water and having to shut off its taps.
Unfortunately, the politicians in charge of our energy and climate policies are driven by ideology, not by facts. Despite incontrovertible evidence of the growing impact of carbon emissions on our health and climate, they are turning a blind eye in pursuit of their political goals — namely, winning votes in coal-producing states such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia while rewarding their corporate benefactors with huge investments in oil and coal.
Ryan Zinke, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, who is focused on opening public lands to greater exploitation by the fossil fuel industry, said that climate change is “irrelevant” to the weather events occurring around the globe.
He and other Trump Administration officials attended an America First Energy Conference where they pushed the idea that carbon dioxide makes the planet greener and is not creating climate change.
And, on August 21st, the administration unveiled its plan to roll back President Obama’s Clean Power initiative, by turning over regulation of coal plant emissions to the states. The President, himself, made the announcement at a political rally in West Virginia.
President Trump proclaimed: “The war on coal has ended.” Unsaid was that the war on our environment continues, unabated.
The many constituents I talk to in my suburban Chicago congressional district find it terribly disheartening that, in 2018, we’re still having this debate. This year’s unprecedented heat waves, wildfires, rainfalls and floods have made a convincing argument that we’ve reached an inflection point. Either we confront the climate changes that are accruing on our doorstep, or we’re fated to even worse environmental disasters ahead.
When it comes to our climate future, they believe Tom Skilling — not Donald Trump.
The first step to reversing our wrong-headed energy and climate policies is to elect a Congress that will confront the challenge instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. It is up to every American to do more than just vote in this November’s elections; they must cast an educated vote based on each candidate’s stand on climate change.
