Expanding crisis
Dear Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt:
I am the sister of someone killed last month in the Montecito mudslides. Had she survived Jan. 9’s catastrophe, I am certain that my beautiful sister would disagree with your assertion made that climate change might be a beneficial trend and that such warming would contribute to human flourishing. In fact, she would be dumbfounded.
After years of extreme drought in Southern California, the biggest wildfire in the state’s history denuded the hillsides of all vegetation, and then a single night’s historic rain event triggered an avalanche of boulders, mud and debris that shifted the landscape of mountainsides and killed more than 20 men, women and children.
As a member of an administration so prone to hyperbole, you should examine the adjectives it so often uses to describe its own accomplishments and redirect them to the natural phenomena happening around our country and our world. The past year ushered in disasters — from unprecedented hurricanes and floods to devastating snowstorms and firestorms. The “strongest” the “biggest,” the “greatest,” even the “hugest” all are fitting descriptors. You ought to use such words to talk about what’s going on as a result of climate change, and as a way to focus attention on this ever-expanding crisis.
This week, just four weeks after my sister’s death, my hometown in the Bay Area broke a record for the hottest start to February ever. That should terrify us all. You, Pruitt, included.
Teresa Drenick, Oakland