Is It Climate Change or Global Warming? Both. And the Republicans Are Still in Denial.

 

I came across an interesting statistic in the New York Times this week. In the year 2000, the federal government issued two disaster declarations for floods. So far in 2024, it has issued 66. The accompanying chart illustrates just how fast climate is changing. For the years between 2001 and 2009, the disaster declarations were 5, 4, 0, 1, 2, 2, 1, 3, and 3. Then the numbers start climbing erratically but rapidly. It’s a bar chart, so I’m just eyeballing these numbers, but in 2010 it appears there were 9, in 2011 26, in 2012 only 3, followed by 17, 10, 9, 18, 13, 17, 54, 21, 9, 14, 42, 66.

As the Times article says, “The reasons are no mystery. Global warming is making storms more severe because warmer air holds more water. At the same time, more Americans are moving to the coast and other flood-prone areas.”

This statistical evidence for floods, coupled with all the other extreme weather-related events, including severe droughts and rampant wildfires, should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that the climate scientists have been right all along. The earth is warming because of our practice of burning fossil fuels, and global warming is advancing faster than the scientists have projected.

So, the obvious course of action for any sane population would be to transition as fast as reasonable to clean energy, which is what the Biden administration has attempted to do. But what about the Republicans. There are a few, like my next senator, Representative John Curtis, who are trying to move the dial among conservatives, but their efforts have been largely ineffective and mostly symbolic.

To see where the Republican Party as a whole stands on the issue of global warming and climate change, I went to the party’s official 2024 platform. Here’s what I found.

Among the twenty promises it lists as part of its “forward-looking Agenda,” are these: “4. Make America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far.” “15. Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations.” I’m assuming since cutting regulations is lumped with electric vehicles, they are referring to their traditional stance of removing fuel-efficiency restrictions on gas-guzzling vehicles.

In a paragraph prior to the 20 promises, the platform reads, “Common Sense tells us clearly that we must unleash American Energy if we want to destroy Inflation and rapidly bring down prices, build the Greatest Economy in History. . . . We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy Independent, and even Dominant again. The United States has more liquid gold under our feet than any other Nation, and it’s not even close. The Republican Party will harness that potential to power our future.” The random capitalization suggests this was written by Donald Trump or someone trying to impersonate his writing style and bombast. But what is not acknowledged here is that the Biden administration has already unleashed American energy, through both drilling and spurring rapid advancement in clean energy. And (ahem) there is no inflation to destroy. The Fed and the Biden administration have already brought inflation under control, and they have done it without tanking the economy—the proverbial soft landing.

Directly following the 20 promises, the GOP platform returns to energy, claiming that “we will soon be again [the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas] by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.” I’m not sure how they are going to terminate the Green New Deal, since it never became law in the U.S. In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) sponsored legislation for a Green New Deal, but it died in the Senate (surprise!). Apparently, the GOP doesn’t know this. They also apparently don’t know that the U.S. is already the top producer of both oil and natural gas in the world. The difference between GOP plans and Democratic plans, however, is that Democrats understand that we do need to wean our nation off of fossil fuels, and that they have established programs to rapidly increase clean energy, programs the GOP will surely deep-six if Trump is elected.

A little later in the GOP platform, they again promise to “streamline permitting, and end market-distorting restrictions on Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal.” This will supposedly help “pave the way for future Economic Greatness,” even though the U.S. economy is right now the envy of almost all other nations. From fourth quarter 2019 through first quarter 2024, when compared with other advanced economies, the U.S. was middle of the road on inflation but far ahead of the next-best economies in terms of GDP growth. So, the Republicans are out to fix something that isn’t broken. But they have to pretend that we’re experiencing a terrible economy. Admitting the truth would be political suicide.

At least they are honest about their plans to combat global warming and the monstrously expensive natural disasters it is already causing. They have none. In fact, their platform is noteworthy for its promises to make everything a lot worse. It appears to still be a badge of honor among Republicans to deny the reality and danger of a warming planet and a changing climate. The Democrats would do more, but their hands are tied by our divided electorate and government. I can’t help but wonder how many multibillion-dollar weather-related disasters we will have to suffer before both parties, but especially the Republicans, will be willing to take the drastic steps we need to take to preserve a habitable earth. It is, after all, the only planet we have.

There is, of course, a lot more crazy stuff in the GOP platform, but I’ll save that for another day.