Shedding light on heat
Washington is stuffed with climatechange deniers, even more so with politicians who refuse to take action to slow a rise in temperatures that threatens to severely damage America’s way of living. Can they be made to see the light? A comprehensive, deeply sobering report by a bipartisan group of business and political leaders could do the trick. It’s that terrifyingly convincing.
The document is the work of the Risky Business Project, whose leaders include Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State George Schultz, George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who presided during Hurricane Sandy.
Research they commissioned found that, if current trends continue, the most likely scenario is that rising seas will engulf as much as half a trillion dollars’ worth of coastal real estate by the end of this century — including significant chunks of the New York City waterfront. At that point, the average annual damage caused by hurricanes will have grown by $42 billion.
By 2050, temperatures will top 95 degrees three times as often as now. Parts of the South and Mid- west could experience months of such weather, with costly consequences to agriculture.
While steering clear of specific solutions, the group calls for swift action by both the private and public sectors — hopefully noting that steps taken now can dramatically ease the future pain.
“For example,” the reports says, “modest global emission reductions can avoid up to 80% of projected economic costs resulting from increased heat-related mortality and energy demand.”
But the necessary debate over what to do cannot happen until Congress faces the truth — especially its Republican skeptics, some of whom represent states with the most to lose.
GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — where average summer temperatures could soar from the sweltering 80s to the punishing 90s by the end of the century — mocks the overwhelming consensus of climate experts as “a so-called scientific theory.”
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — which could see its annual toll from coastal storms jump by $24 billion a year — recently declared: “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it.”
They’re fiddling while the planet burns.