Walker and climate change

For the third time this summer, Wisconsin has been battered by torrential rains and flooding, leading Governor Walker to declare a state of emergency for the entire state “due to an ongoing statewide weather pattern, which has led to severe storms, heavy downpours, flooding and tornadoes.”

Ironically, the frequency and exceptional ferocity of these storms are largely attributable to climate change, a threat Walker dismisses while his policies contribute to making it worse. He has expunged the term “climate change” from state websites, hung onto coal-fired power plants, redefined DNR’s mission as managing resources to produce revenue, eliminated climate-related research and the jobs of scientists, and permitted destruction of wetlands vital to flood control.

And now that floods are wreaking havoc he wants Washington to help pay for it.

The social and economic costs of ignoring climate change are becoming intolerable, whereas confronting the problem head-on by accelerating the switch to clean energy and instituting a revenue-neutral fee on carbon pollution would stop making things worse while boosting the economy. Achieving a stable climate will be difficult, but not impossible if we elect politicians willing to take aggressive climate action.

Carol Steinhart

Madison