A weekly reckoning with life in a warming world—and the fight to save it |
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The only access to the Matlacha neighborhood in Fort Myers, Florida, was destroyed by Hurricane Ian. Ricardo Arduengo/AFP/Getty |
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The past week has seen more than its fair share of off-the-wall news. But the article I can’t get out of my head is that the death and devastation that Hurricane Ian wrought on Florida is expected to actually help Governor Ron DeSantis’s electoral chances, not hurt them. What a searing indictment of Democrats’ current messaging on climate change. Hurricanes often don’t have much effect on governors’ approval ratings, Nathaniel Rakich noted at FiveThirtyEight last week—although voters do notice a particularly good or particularly poor disaster response. But according to one Democratic strategist who spoke to CNN’s Steve Contorno, President Biden’s insistence on setting politics aside in the wake of the hurricane may have handed DeSantis a boost in the polls. Democratic nominee Charlie Crist and his allies had begun to criticize DeSantis for his prior opposition to hurricane relief spending and climate change legislation, as well as his sluggishness on Florida’s property insurance crisis. But then Biden declared that he and DeSantis, despite having “very different political philosophies,” were “in complete lockstep.” “The dynamics of the race needed to shift, and this was an opportunity for it to shift,” the aforementioned strategist told Contorno. “The president complimenting the governor takes that whole issue off the table.” |
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American voters seem to share Biden’s instinct for a conciliatory postdisaster approach: A poll conducted by YouGov and The Economist last week found surprisingly bipartisan approval of DeSantis’s response to the hurricane: 54 percent of Americans overall approved, which broke down to 80 percent of Republicans and 43 percent of Democrats. There’s a reason politicians traditionally eschew “politics” in the wake of natural disasters: Turning tragic deaths—at least 120 people died in Florida, most by drowning—into attack ads reeks of poor taste, and no politician commands the weather. But the climate crisis also challenges some of the assumptions on which this tradition rests, and DeSantis’s record here is particularly suspect. Because there’s a strong research consensus at this point that climate change is making hurricanes stronger and wetter, politicians who oppose climate legislation can credibly be accused of some degree of moral responsibility for climate disasters. DeSantis, as TNR contributor Kartik Krishnaiyer recently pointed out, has supported resilience funding but opposes policies that tackle the root cause of climate change (i.e., emissions). DeSantis makes nonsensical statements such as, “I am not a global warming person.” Only weeks before Hurricane Ian hit, TNR’s Kate Aronoff noted, DeSantis “opted to bar the state’s pension funds from taking environment, social, and governance considerations into account—including the risks posed by climate-fueled storms.” That’s to say nothing of the inaction on Florida’s flood insurance crisis; in fact, in 2013, DeSantis voted against legislation to increase federal funding for flood insurance. “If DeSantis had prevailed nine years ago,” Thomas Frank recently wrote at CimateWire, “Florida residents today might be unable to collect flood insurance claims worth several billion dollars.” The least the Democrats can do is to publicly connect these dots—be clear and specific about the corporations and politicians that are blocking attempts to mitigate climate change, and unflinching in describing the moral consequences of these actions. There’s certainly a big audience for it: According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, half of registered voters—including 27 percent of Republicans—say climate change is either “very important” or “one of the most important issues” affecting their vote in the midterm elections. There comes a point—and I’d argue we’ve reached it—when performatively setting politics aside in the wake of disaster, as Biden did in Florida, dishonors those who have died or who have lost everything but their lives. And it’s a particularly poor approach to take with politicians like DeSantis who are in fact building their careers by politicizing climate change. People are not just going to die in the future because of climate change. They’re dying right now, and the climate arsonists of the Republican Party bear some responsibility for it. The Democrats have serious problems if they consider it taboo to say as much. —Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor |
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In climate talks led by the International Civil Aviation Organization, 193 nations finally reached an agreement to try to get the aviation industry to net-zero emissions by 2050. |
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This is “net”-zero, which probably means purchasing carbon offsets and some such. Net-zero is a complicated concept that often winds up meaning companies continue their emissions while doing something to balance them out—investing in carbon capture technology, for instance, which has a very patchy record. (Among other issues, the captured carbon can then sometimes be used for further industrial purposes, like more fossil fuel extraction.) |
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That’s the cumulative cost of all the weather and climate disasters that have exceeded $1 billion in damages in the United States so far this year. The number of billion-dollar disasters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns, is rising. |
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Elsewhere in the Ecosystem |
In a classic example of climate change turning everything topsy-turvy, the famously wet Netherlands is now shifting from feats of engineering to keep water out to feats of engineering to keep water in: |
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“We are world champions in making land dry,” said Peter van Dijk, a blueberry grower based in the country’s south. “Now we are trying to turn that system around, because we overshot.” Even in a rich and ambitious country like the Netherlands, it’s a huge challenge. The Dutch government has tiptoed around raising prices for heavy water users, wary of a backlash. Tighter rules on construction in vulnerable areas could deepen a housing shortage. Curbs on water-use risk exacerbating tensions with farmers, who have staged furious protests against a plan to cut nitrogen emissions. When it comes to drought, a major problem is that the Netherlands, one of the world’s most densely populated countries, just doesn’t have the space for big new reservoirs. Plus, it is pancake flat: Without gravity’s help, pumping water around takes lots of energy. |
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What Subscribers Are Reading |
In a year full of climate disasters wrecking homes and lives, global warming ought to be treated like the kitchen-table issue it is. |
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The president’s remarks undermined the campaign for the new booster shots. Nearly 4,000 people have since died of Covid-19 in the United States. |
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