by Brad Johnson
Will the Frankenstorm be the moment that galvanizes Americans to recognize climate change as an urgent threat to our economic and national security?
Only if the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties end their silence when climate disasters strike.
The silence of our leaders in both parties on global warming amid billion-dollar disasters is a key reason the American people are not better mobilized to address the threat. Even as communities across the nation work at the local level to build climate resilience, even as American voters connect the dots between the disasters they’ve faced and carbon pollution, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have missed repeated opportunities to provide leadership over the course of the presidential campaign.
Below are the candidates’ responses to four different billion-dollar climate disasters during the campaign season:
August 2011: Hurricane Irene. Obama delivers a statement on Hurricane Irene at the White House and addresses victims in Paterson, NJ, but does not mention that the storm’s impact was intensified by oceanic warming, sea level rise, greater atmospheric vapor, and increased extreme precipitation in the Northeast connected to global warming.
Romney cancels fundraisers in Martha’s Vineyard, South Hampton, and East Hampton, two days after telling voters, “I can’t tell you how much of the warming I think we’re experiencing is caused by human beings. It may be a lot. It may be a little.”
June 2012: Colorado Wildfires. Obama announces an “all-hands-on-deck” response in his weekly address to the nation from Colorado Springs, after visiting the devastating wildfires, but does not mention the role climate change had in fueling the fires, including higher temperatures, more intense drought, and bark beetle infestations.
A week later, Romney visits the wildfires, and recommends that Americans help the victims by vacationing in Colorado. He does not mention climate change.
August 2012: National Drought. Obama announces an “all-hands-on-deck” response in his weekly address to the nation. He notes that “the month of July was the warmest month on record — warmer than any other month since we began keeping track more than a century ago,” but does not connect that to climate change.
Romney visits Iowa, says he’s “a little concerned about the drought,” and says “we’re looking for more rain.”
In October, Romney jokes about the Iowa drought: “It used to be that there was rainwater in Iowa, and people cared about it – we hope it’s coming back soon.”
September 2012: Hurricane Isaac. Mitt Romney tours damage in Louisiana with Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), but does not mention climate change.
Obama tours the “enormous devastation” in Louisiana, but does not mention climate change.
Mitt Romney’s climate silence is carbon-fueled. His energy adviser is oil baron Harold Hamm, and his running mate is an anti-science conspiracy theorist, so there’s little chance Romney will connect the dots between this Frankenstorm and greenhouse pollution.
Furthermore, Romney believes that federal disaster relief efforts are “immoral” and should be privatized:
However, there’s a real chance President Obama will provide leadership on climate change with Hurricane Sandy. Just this month, Obama told Iowans that “carbon pollution” is connected to “the droughts we’ve seen.” In his interview with MTV on Friday, he said he was “surprised” climate change “didn’t come up in the debates,” calling it a “huge contrast” between himself and his opponent.
We know the candidates will express their sympathy with those affected about Hurricane Sandy. They will rightly applaud the first responders, the compassion of neighbors, and the strength and resolve of the American people.
But what their role as national leaders demands that they also do is explain why this Frankenstorm is happening. We have to stop poisoning our weather and start saving our future. The candidate who is honest with voters about the climate threat now will distinguish himself as equipped to lead this nation in the 21st century.
Brad Johnson is the campaign manager of Forecast the Facts and ClimateSilence.org
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
It would be dumb not to size the momentum this storm is creating. We sadly require events on the scale of Pearl Harbor to waken up the public mind to the growing dangers of unchecked climate change.
It is only getting worse,
The effects we see today are in part masked by aerosols in the air.
The ocean takes up most of our emissions and it leads to ocean acidification.
It is generally assumed that we only witness the emissions from what we emitted 30 years ago.
The global carbon equivalent of emission budget is rising, with an accelerating pace.
We run the biggest experiment in human history when it comes to altering the atmospheric chemistry setup. Consequences will last for hundreds and thousands of years.
We have to change the way we treat our resources and the magnitude we contaminate the environment.
We have the technology, today we must act, on a global scale!
To protect yourself from storm, build up your inner defense mechanisms by slowly retreating into state of deep denial. http://www.theonion.com/articles/hurricane-safety-tips,8090
Eaarth, Welcome to the rest of our future….
Some think the NY subway could be closed for good….
‘Hope’ and ‘pray’: New York subway’s defense against Sandy
grist
“Hope” and “pray” Sandy doesn’t flood the New York subway and its antiquated water pumps.
ClimateChaos share a link…
http://tinyurl.com/3rt55yb
Hi Paul,
You may well be right about the NYC subway.
The storm tide at the Battery in lower Manhattan was 12.75 ft at 7:53 PM (time of predicted high tide). This is at least 4 feet above the level at which the Subway will flood.
Live data:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/geo.shtml?location=8518750
48 hr chart:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/quicklook/data/SANDY.html#8518750wl
The storm tide peaked at the Battery at 13.88 feet at 8:24 pm, which was about 51 minutes after high tide.
The residual (height of storm over high tide) was 9.15 feet, so even if this storm hit at low tide, the subway tunnels would still have flooded.
Welcome to the rest of the 21 Century.
You can see that humanity, overwhelmingly, is aware of the problem, and the technological means exist to decarbonise rapidly. Unfortunately, in a world run by a tiny, infinitely vicious, capitalist elite, this does not count. If the 0.01% prefer their money invested in hydrocarbons and their profits maximised there, then the views of the 99.9% will not prevail. Our political systems are utterly corrupt, morally and spiritually. If it goes on very much longer there will be an explosion of utterly justified anger, which would be a total disaster.
The problem is much of the 99.9% for whatever reasons, dont really want to leave the comfortable life styles that FF have brought.
They broadly avoid the issue.
Did the Russian heat wave in 2010 galvanize the Russians to consider climate change to be an urgent threat? Absolutely not. So why even bother asking whether Hurricane Sandy will have this effect on Americans? The answer should be obvious.
Prokaryotes is right. People respond only when there is a clear and present danger. This storm is a perfect opportunity for a leader to toss out something like, “Scientists tell us that severe weather is happening more frequently and intensely due to the extra energy in the atmosphere trapped by our carbon emissions.” It’s indirect, non-alarmist, factual, common-sensical, and lays the ground work to get the broad agreement–the social legitimization–of the WW2-style effort we need to reduce carbon in time to avoid an ultimate catastrophe.
Obama should jump on this.