Climate crisis downplayed, but it’s most important thing
Our country is in the midst of so many crises, it’s difficult to keep track of them all or to discern which one is the most serious.
We remain engulfed in a pandemic whose severity has been exacerbated by staggering incompetence in the White House. We watch an unprecedented series of tropical storms rattle the southern United States. We see the most urban violence in at least a generation, stoked by irresponsible rhetoric from the highest levels of government. And all this makes the fires in the western United States feel like just another fire season.
But this relative devaluation of the severity of the western fires belies the growing crisis of climate change and the reality that these fires and other climate impacts are yet another new and scary normal. More tragically, however, is the fact that the growing climate crisis is the product of willful ignorance on the part of policy elites over the past 30 years. Even more problematic is that the willful ignorance has turned to outright hostility and much more deliberate ignorance toward the emergent climate crisis over the past four years. Nowhere has that ignorance been more on display than in California recently when Trump argued that “I don’t think science knows” what is causing the fires.
One of the saddest parts about this rejection of science and expertise is that we elect and appoint our leaders, in theory, with the hope that they will serve the public good and help protect us from dangers far and near. When it comes to climate change and its myriad threats, that hope seems Pollyannaish at best, and in the case of the current administration, fictional.
To be honest, few in the 1980s and 1990s were sounding the alarm bells of climate disaster that we have heard over the past 20 years. Though with the growing evidence and increasing sense of urgency found in the climate assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, first published in 1990, every decision-maker in the public sector has had more than ample opportunity to recognize that the threats are mounting by the day. Whether the accelerating incidence of fires in the West or severe weather up the East Coast, one must make a concerted effort to deny climate change, because ignoring it isn’t really possible. In fact, one study of public attitudes on climate change shows that 73% of respondents view climate change as a problem while only 20% are doubtful or dismissive of it. Similar surveys demonstrate how out-ofsync our leaders are with assessments by the average citizen.
One reason for why decision-makers are so out of step with the public is that the lead time for climate disaster, until now, has not made the crisis nearly as pressing as unemployment, foreclosures, terrorism and other issues. So although one might hope that our decision-makers could see a path forward toward climate action, the incentives for short-term electoral interests drive myopic policy and little forethought. Our ability to ignore climate urgency is ending, however.
The ongoing fires in the western United States are the obvious example of the imminent threat that climate change presents for the country. Threats like this have transformed climate change from a future concern into an annual, severe threat to personal security and livelihood. So even if you don’t “believe” in climate change (a suspect stance regardless), the security threat is undeniable.
And the list of imminent human and economic threats is voluminous.
The series of storms in the Atlantic this year has shown both the magnitude and severity of this challenge to the management of daily life in the Caribbean and the southern United States. Similar events have been witnessed in the Asia-Pacific region, even if they are off the radar of most Americans.
All of this will only get worse as the insurance companies seek to protect their profit margins. In having to answer to their stockholders, insurance companies are among the most progressive forces for climate action in the business world. Why should they re-insure homes in fire-prone areas of the West, or on an East Coast beach, or anywhere else in world where the climate crisis is peaking? Once these companies pull away more fully from re-insurance (with or without governmental sanction), this will leave homeowners and businesses without a safety net. But it may also be the push for sanity in terms of planning around building practices and climate engagement.
Around the world, there are many places where the financial wherewithal to cope with the climate crisis just can’t and won’t happen. How can developing countries in the global
South cope with climate migration flows away from massive coastal cities or drought prone areas? And who will pay to support those migration flows when most countries in the global South struggle to meet the normal everyday needs of their citizenry?
As we continue to cope with COVID-19, one would be remiss not to mention the fact that the climate crisis will also change the nature of disease vectors. Just as COVID emerged from human-animal interactions around Wuhan, China, this type of species jump will occur more often as humanity pushes further into new habitats. And as Zika, West Nile, Triple-E, malaria and other mosquito and insect borne vectors tell us, we are only in for
more human health threats in coming years.
This cheery assessment should tell everyone that the climate crisis is upon us. While most of us will not be “climate voters” in November, we probably should be. The stakes are high and accelerating toward even higher levels of threats. The hope I hold is that our decision-makers will recognize the threats and take action when presented with such a stark, immediate outlook. But I won’t know if that hope is warranted for another six weeks or so, I expect.