In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, communities across the southern United States and the Caribbean are struggling to regain what has been lost. Houses, families and livelihoods have been obliterated by these natural disasters.
Several articles published last week explored the palpable link between Hurricane Harvey and climate change. Alan Reynolds, the author of a Newsweek op-ed, paints those who make climate change part of the conversation as smug and political: “Their authors claim to be wise and well informed, and anyone who dares to question their ‘settled science’ must need to have their eyes pried open and their mouths shut.” However, there has been a significant pushback from other news sources, by either claiming this link was false or by omitting the issue of climate change entirely in their coverage.
The past weeks have shown us that we can no longer dispute facts. These storms may have reflected a relatively normal and seasonal occurrence, but the magnitude of these storms has been exacerbated by rising global temperatures. According to NPR, in the simplest of explanations, melted polar ice caps and rising ocean temperatures create more seismic storms.
Somehow, those who choose to believe this reality suffer from a delusional liberal narrative of fear. However, plenty of conservatives now embrace the truth of climate change, including Lynn Scarlett, a former Bush administration official who now leads global public policy at the Nature Conservancy.
Climate change is neither a political issue nor a partisan one; it is a global, multi-generational phenomenon that will require extensive planning and a cultural revolution to combat an attitude toward our planet that is cavalier at best. We see storms as isolated incidents rather than part of a larger trend that has been observed and scrutinized by leading climatologists. Although these professionals have been doing this arduous detective work for decades, it’s somehow just too big a leap of faith to believe that our ways of thinking must change rather than adapt to the now perilous conditions we’ve created.
There’s often an aversion to political discourse in the midst of a national tragedy. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has banned the phrase “climate change” from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Additionally, radio host Rush Limbaugh recently told his listeners that hurricane warnings were a panic-inducing hoax. This can be considered homicidal: encouraging listeners to ignore the possibility of evacuating a Category 5 hurricane should be enough to charge Limbaugh in the deaths of any people who chose not to evacuate.
It’s time to indict this ignorance. The people in power sustain these lies to ensure their own toxic interests of exploiting natural resources. When their houses are destroyed in the next disaster, they will simply move to their New York townhouse or their Bel Air mansion. They project the title of “elite” onto educated men and women who believe in climate change, implicating them in destruction of our country’s fabric. These people are more powerful than any hurricane our oceans can conjure. And they wreak just as much havoc.
Kristen DiPietra is a senior double-majoring in English and human development.