The storm ahead

Who will pay to prevent the insidious effects of climate change affecting Pittsburghers?

Pittsburghers willingly and appropriately have joined with the rest of the nation to provide charitable funding and our tax dollars for Texans and Floridians and Puerto Ricans devastated by recent hurricanes. These dramatic storms were undoubtedly worsened by global climate change. But climate change has insidious effects that, increasingly, are putting all of us at risk. Who will help pay for these?

Let’s put to rest the irrational idea that climate change had nothing to do with the impact of the recent hurricanes. Scientists understood more than a century ago that the sun’s heat was trapped on our planet by atmospheric carbon dioxide — the greenhouse effect.

In 1984 I was Environmental Protection Agency assistant administrator for research under President Ronald Reagan when we received our first funding specifically for what was then called global warming. The National Academy of Sciences and other highly respected scientific bodies had noted early evidence of climate change and predicted that, with continued dependence on fossil fuels and with increasing global population, significant changes in sea level and climate would occur with potentially devastating impact.

In the more than 30 years since then, these predictions have been repetitively validated. It is no longer a reasonable scientific question whether substantial climate change is occurring or that it is due to human activity.

We should not allow climate-change deniers to obfuscate the issue. Yes, for any specific storm there is uncertainty about the exact contribution of climate change to its formation, direction, speed and intensity. But the underlying science is elementary. Hurricanes get energy from the heat of the ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico has never been recorded to be warmer; hot air holds more moisture so when conditions are right it will rain more, and when the sea level base is higher the flood surge inevitably will have greater force and go deeper inland.

Often left out of the discussion is the magnifying effect of even a small percentage increase in wind velocity, rainfall or storm surge — let alone all three occurring together. Major storm damage occurs when tipping points are exceeded. Consider a roof that can handle up to 100 mph winds but at 105 mph the roof is gone. The rain and wind destroy the home. Inhabitants who are sheltering in place are imperiled. For a community, the number of tipping points begins to increase as wind or floods overcome the resistance of usual construction.

This is also true for major infrastructure, including dams and levees, and for natural factors such as the ability of a tree to withstand wind and rain. The U.S. military already recognizes that climate change intensifies the threat of war, in part because it forces population movements in unstable parts of the world.

But the adverse outcomes of climate change go well beyond dramatic acute disasters or the possibility of war. We can anticipate the worsening of existing diseases in susceptible individuals, and the development of new occurrence of illness.

For example, asthmatic children are particularly susceptible to air pollutants, including ozone, which is formed more readily on hotter days, and to pollen coming from plants whose growing seasons are being extended. Heat strokes and deaths occur on hotter days, particularly in those with pre-existing cardiorespiratory disease, but also in young athletes exercising outdoors — and the last three years in a row set global temperature records. Concern about infectious diseases ranges from the potential spread of insect vectors carrying dengue or malaria, to the recognition that speedier growth of bacteria on hotter days inevitably leads to more summertime food poisoning.

Pertinent to Allegheny County is the predicted increase in short periods of heavy rainfall that will further challenge our combined sewage overflow problem, with more expensive fixes needed to prevent raw sewage from polluting our rivers and potentially affecting our drinking water. Heavy rainfall also increases runoff into rivers of pollutants left behind from our industrial legacy.

It is tempting to resort to sectionalism. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie attacked Texas Republicans as hypocritical for their inadequate support for rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy in 2012 while they insisted on federal funding in response to Hurricane Harvey. Elected leaders of Texas and Florida, including state governors and their primarily Republican congressional delegations, have been blocking effective action to prevent or to mitigate the effects of climate change — contributing to the problem for which their citizens are justly receiving national support.

Further, these same political leaders, and their kindred who deny climate change at the behest of the fossil fuel industry, are also culpable for the far less dramatic impacts of climate change, which will increasingly affect us all.

We all bear some responsibility for failing to do what has been needed to prevent climate change and to lessen its impact. It would be foolhardy for hurricaneprone areas to only repair existing damage without strengthening infrastructure to withstand the next hurricane — something that the governors of Texas and Florida had previously resisted.

But it would be even more foolhardy for the rest of our nation not to insist on primary prevention of the impact of climate change on all of our communities. To do that, we must aggressively limit the release of greenhouse gases and actively support energy sources that do not contribute to global climate change.

Bernard D. Goldstein, M.D., is professor emeritus and dean emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.