Monster Hurricane Irma that is currently devastating different parts of the US after the initial Harvey, should serve as a waking call to President Donald Trump and his administration on the issue of climate change.
In early June, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change — a move that removed the U.S. from efforts to combat global warming and participate in an international conversation on climate change.
President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order addressing the nation’s infrastructure, which eliminated a part of an order from former President Barack Obama that required the federal government to take climate change and a rising sea-level into account when building.
Just before the hurricane emerged, the Trump administration chose to disband a federal advisory panel aimed at guiding public and private-sector officials in understanding the findings of the government’s reports on the climate.
The 15-person Advisory Committee for Sustained National Climate Assessment, which is comprised of academics, industry, government and local officials, was established in 2015 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The charter for the group expired on August 20, 2017, and NOAA’s acting administer told the committee’s chair that the panel would not be renewed, the Washington Post reported.
Since the Global Change Research Act of 1990 was established, the U.S. Global Change Research Program is tasked with creating a National Climate Assessment every four years. The next report is slated to come out in 2018.
President Trump has a dim view on climate change and he has made some outrageous statements about the issue.
On November 6, 2012, Donald Trump tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
On October 19, 2015, he then tweeted: “It’s really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!”
It is now time for President Trump to know that climate change has been proven by science, it’s caused by humans, and it’s endangering cities and lives.
Now with Hurricane Irma destroying lives of thousands of American people and rendering them destitute President Tump need to know that climate change is real.
He needs to understand that hurricanes feed off warm water. Very warm water heated by global warming makes hurricanes worse.
Warm air holds more water vapor, too, producing more rainfall and flooding. Climate change also causes sea levels to rise and makes storm surges higher.
There is ample evidence, according to Earth Day Network that suggest that urban sprawl and poor land management make a bad situation worse. Today in Houston, as the flood waters recede, a cocktail of toxic chemicals, sewage, debris and waste are contaminating the city, sparking worry about disease.
Sewers are overflowing and human and animal waste pollute both municipal water supplies and private wells, while petrochemicals from the area’s petroleum and plastics industries further poison air and water.
Plus there are two dozen superfund sites in the area leaching the legacy of earlier industrialization: lead, arsenic polychlorinated biphenyls, benzene and more.
Now less than two weeks after Harvey, here comes Irma, another monster hurricane, barreling towards Florida with a direct hit on Miami and its densely populated suburbs looking likely. Forecasters say this could be the most powerful storm ever to hit the area.
The Earth Day Network is now asking US leaders and other people to help victims of Harvey and Irma with a robust plan for aid, but not to stop there.
It’s time for US leaders to take action on the dangers of climate change, fund the United States Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), support resilient cities infrastructure projects, and back binding global climate agreements.
PATRICK MAYOYO IS THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE DAILY REPORTER