GOP fiddles as America burns
Republican politicians are taking their lead on energy policy from Emperor Nero who, according to legend, fiddled while Rome burned. No, wait, it's worse than that. While some GOP legislators and presidential candidates are just fiddling a la Nero, others are actually fanning the flames.
Science shows the emission of greenhouse gases as a byproduct of using coal, oil and natural gas for power and heating leads to global warming. A hotter planet leads to droughts which in turn leads to drier plants that catch fire more easily and burn more intensely. A hotter planet also leads to melting ice in the polar regions, which in turn leads to rising oceans and flooding coastlines.
The past eight years have been the warmest on planet Earth since records have been kept. The hottest month in the last thousand centuries was last month. Phoenix sizzled this summer with the temperature reaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit for 31 consecutive days. The ocean temperature off the coast of Florida set new records while soaring over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
We've seen the effects of global warming in Hawaii, too, whose average temperature today is 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than in 1950. It's not a certainty that the recent fire on the Hawaiian island of Maui was directly caused by this climate change, but climate change is a likely suspect for triggering its fierceness. With over 100 deaths, the fire is the deadliest wildfire in the United States since 1918. A recent study found human-caused climate change nearly doubled the forest fire area between 1984 and 2015 in the western United States.
President Joe Biden, the clear leader for renomination by the Democratic Party, wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade.
And what do the two leading contenders for the Republican nomination for president want to do about climate change and global warming? In 2017, then-President Donald Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the 2015 Paris climate accord designed to cap the rise in global warming. (The Biden administration has rejoined the accord.) On the campaign trail this year, Trump claimed global sea levels are rising about an eighth of an inch every three centuries. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, global sea levels are rising that much each year.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the other leading contender for the GOP nomination, has rejected calls to do something about the warming planet, calling any such initiatives "left-wing stuff." Former Vice President Mike Pence, another contender, accused "radical environmentalists" of exaggerating the threat of global warming.
Rising seas are coming as a result of global warming as well. According to an article in Scientific American, "an estimated 4.3 million acres - an area nearly the size of Connecticut - will be under water by 2050, including $35 billion worth of real estate."
GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville, whose state of Alabama borders the Gulf of Mexico, has co-sponsored legislation to prohibit any U.S. spending on the Paris climate accord, to promote oil and gas leases on federal land and to direct the government to ignore any environmental costs from use of carbon-based fuels.
Last year in West Virginia v. EPA, the six justices of the Supreme Court appointed by Republican presidents voted to cut off the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. In an angry dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote, "Whatever else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change."
But it's not just Republicans on the national stage who are taking positions that fuel global warming. This year, for example, GOP lawmakers in Texas passed laws to spend billions to subsidize gas-fueled power plants on the one hand, while making nonpolluting wind and solar power in rural areas more expensive on the other.
On May 10, 2023, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a bill that barred Montana's agencies from considering greenhouse gas emissions or climate change in reviewing applications for energy projects. In response to a lawsuit by 16 young residents, a Montana court ruled this week that the state must consider climate change when deciding whether to approve or renew coal and gas projects. The judge found that "Montana's climate, environment, and natural resources are unconstitutionally degraded and depleted due to the current atmospheric concentration of (greenhouse gas emissions) and climate change." Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen has vowed to appeal that ruling.
Speaking at a U.N. conference, renowned naturalist David Attenborough warned, "If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security" from food production, access to fresh water and habitable ambient temperature to ocean food chains. It's hard to say whether Republican politicians are influencing the voters or vice versa, but neither group seems to be listening to such warnings. A survey this month showed Republican voters by a 3-1 margin think that economic growth should be given priority over dealing with climate change. (Democrats rate climate change the higher priority by a 4-1 margin.)
In his song "Who by Fire," Leonard Cohen riffs on an ancient prayer and asks who will die "by fire" and who "by water." Here's hoping - despite today's politics - that the future holds a third and happier alternative for us humans.
© Creators, 2023