The Texas floods were made worse by climate denialism

Michael R. Bloomberg, Tribune News Service

The tragic news out of central Texas has been heartbreaking, but it’s also been maddening — because so many lives could have been saved if elected officials had done their jobs. They owe the families who lost loved ones — the death toll from the Fourth of July floods is now at more than 100 — more than thoughts and prayers. They owe them a sincere commitment to righting their deadly wrong, by tackling the problem they’ve turned their backs on for too long: climate change. The scientific evidence is clear that the more frequent extreme weather we are experiencing is being driven by climate change — and that it’s only going to get worse. As the director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M University put it, the storms and flooding in central Texas are “exactly what the future is going to hold.” And yet so many elected officials are pretending otherwise.

The latest episode of horrific flooding isn’t just about a natural disaster in one state. It’s also about a political failure that’s been happening in states across the country, and most of all in Washington. The refusal to recognize that climate change carries a death penalty is sending innocent people, including far too many children, to early graves.

Nearly a year ago, Hurricane Helene caused devastating flooding in western North Carolina that killed more than 100 people. A few months later, wildfires in California killed 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. This month, the death and destruction of climate change came to Texas. Where will be next? No place is safe.

Not every life can be spared from climate change, unfortunately, but many more could be saved if elected officials stopped pretending that they’re powerless to do anything about it. The fact is: Climate change is a manageable problem with practical solutions. Those solutions will not only save lives, but they will also improve our health, reduce our energy bills and create more jobs. The longer these officials pretend otherwise, the more the public will suffer, and the more people will die. And yet what are those in power in Washington doing? Worse than nothing: They are actively thwarting efforts to address climate change and help communities cope with its harms.

The Trump administration has erased the words “climate change” — and critical climate data and information — from government websites, as if the problem could be wished away. It is attempting to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s obligation to fight climate change. And it has put lives at risk by canceling grants to local communities to help them prepare for the effects of climate change — and by cutting essential positions at the National Weather Service that help communities prepare and respond to disasters, leaving the weather service’s offices in the areas around the flooding short-staffed.

Last week, the administration even proposed eliminating a research office that plays a critical role in forecasting extreme weather. And that’s not the end of it. On the same day the Texas floods killed dozens of people, the president signed a budget bill that, in addition to piling on $3 trillion to the national debt, gutted the nation’s efforts to promote renewable energy sources. The new budget repeals tax credits for clean energy production, electric vehicles and clean manufacturing while also eliminating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which Congress created to help increase private-sector investment in clean energy. As a result, many fewer such projects will be built, killing jobs in communities across the country and driving up energy costs.

All of this will make it harder for the US to drive down the greenhouse-gas emissions that are helping to supercharge deadly storms, while increasing the human toll and financial costs of extreme weather — and making it harder for states and localities to recover from it.

Local and state governments do not have the resources to dig out from disasters on their own, which is why Texas Governor Greg Abbott has requested support and financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Yet the administration has been busy gutting the agency, which has lost some 20% of its full-time staff since the start of the year. Making matters worse, the administration has proposed getting rid of FEMA altogether, which would be a disaster in itself.

In short: The federal government is attempting to get out of the business of helping communities prepare for and respond to climate-fueled weather disasters just as they’re becoming more deadly and destructive. It won’t work. As the flooding in Texas painfully demonstrates, Washington cannot escape its duty to confront climate change. Trying to do so will only lead to higher body counts and heavier financial burdens on communities.

To Abbott’s credit, he has stood up for the state’s clean energy industry and helped kill several bills that would have put an anti-free-market cap on clean energy production and subjected wind and solar power projects to additional red tape. We need more of our elected representatives to recognize that climate change should not be a partisan issue — and that it requires urgent cooperation from members of both parties, as well as both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.