Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Politico reports that top Democrats are refraining from taking advantage of Hurricane Harvey and Irma, in stark contrast to their response to Hurricane Sandy.
Democrats hold their fire on climate change
They’re largely refraining from using the destruction wrought by Harvey and Irma as an occasion to lambaste President Donald Trump’s policies.
By EMILY HOLDEN and ELANA SCHOR 09/12/2017 06:09 PM EDT
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have handed Democrats their most potent opportunity in half a decade to hammer Republicans on climate change — with the massive storms giving tens of millions of Americans an upfront glimpse of the types of devastation the world faces if the warming planet spawns a surge in extreme weather.
But instead, they’re mostly keeping quiet.
…
That’s a contrast from past storms like 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, when Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the disaster a sign that “climate change is a reality.” Even then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, cited the storm and climate change at the time among his reasons for endorsing Barack Obama’s reelection as president.
…
The wariness of appearing to seize on a disaster is “part of” the party’s calculus behind keeping the climate politics to a minimum after the hurricanes, said the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Tom Carper of Delaware.
“When we’ve done a good deal more work in terms of cleanup and getting folks’ lives back to normal, I hope we do a deep dive into whether or not the warming in the Gulf of Mexico is really what’s causing this,” Carper added in an interview, vowing that a broader climate conversation is “coming soon.”
…
It’s not a good idea to try to land a “punch to the gut of climate change deniers” while first responders are still “pulling bodies out of the water,” said Jeff Schlegelmilch, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
But green groups haven’t hesitated to take aim at Trump online, with the Natural Resources Defense Council criticizing his recent move to rescind climate standards for federal infrastructure and the League of Conservation Voters praising Miami’s Republican mayor, Tomás Regalado, for saying it is time to talk about climate change.
…
Bill McKibben, founder of the outspoken climate activist group 350.org, shied away from disparaging Democrats, though.
“We’ve got a much sterner test for Democrats than will they talk about climate change — it’s will they come out for 100% renewable energy,” he said by email. “Short of that, talk is cheap.”
…
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/12/democrats-hurricanes-climate-change-242618
As noted previously, many people in regions affected by the hurricanes don’t see climate as an issue. Hillary Clinton recently admitted her greatest regret was threatening the jobs of coal miners.
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“…and the League of Conservation Voters praising Miami’s Republican mayor, Tomás Regalado, for saying it is time to talk about climate change.”
These people have thought it’s “time to talk about climate change” every minute for the past 30 years. Trouble is, if you DO talk about climate change and have more than a five-second attention span, you quickly figure out that the change is for all practical purposes unidentifiable.
…or a proxy for impacts from development in the area, i.e. uninformed.
‘Real bad boys move in silence’ (A kewpie doll if anyone here can attribute THAT quote).
But it fits – strategically, most legislation on climate change has been done under the table – much too often simply by implementation of regulation – or if done on any high-profile stage at all, it’s presented with the the sort of vague sales pitch ‘it’s for the environment – what harm can it do?’, or ‘it’s saving the planet (with no specifics exactly HOW, but usually with a lot of histrionics from celebrity activists – see the Hurricane Telethon mentioned by Reginald, above) – because if the implications of what they were actually doing became widely understood, they would likely incur the wrath of the general population.
This also explains the knee-jerk exaggeration which accompanies almost every agenda item – they can’t be honest about anything – all they do is flash bumper stickers, with sentiments that are, of course, hard to argue with – which gets emotion up, so people baited-up don’t care exactly what is done ‘to solve things’, just that it’s SOMETHING – a situation guaranteed to be exploited by opportunists.
https://www.thegwpf.com/at-last-winton-capital-sets-up-climate-change-prediction-market/
“If the Winton market is successful, Mr Roulston envisions it being a source to show how experts believe world events — such as the US withdrawing from the climate accord — could impact climate change.”
Time to put money where mouth is.
“Jose will generally move in a circular pattern to the south then the northwest then the north into this weekend. This pattern will keep Jose between Bermuda, the Bahamas and the southeastern coast of the U.S.”
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/hurricane-jose-to-stir-east-coast-surf-into-next-week-where-will-it-track/70002694
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/natl/h5-loop-rb.html
The situation is that on the one degree scale of “Temperature Departure” global warming since 1850 is “unequivocal”, but on the +30 to -30 degree scale of normal human activities, it is also “unnoticeable”. This gives a very wide range for soapboxers to declare “big problem” or “no problem” as might suit their manipulative ambitions.
Mexico is threatened with a tropical storm, and Florida with torrential rain.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?color_type=tpw_nrl_colors&prod=conus×pan=24hrs&anim=html5
Washington State Governor Inslee says the hurricanes are due to AGW — and that any denier politician should be disqualified from running for office. See: http://appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/Inslee.htm
The claim was “stronger and more frequent.” Will they ignore the second prong? It’s a good bet they will, shamelessly.
“Top Democrats are refraining from taking advantage of Hurricane Harvey and Irma” – because climate scientists and the MSM are doing that for them
There are some interesting stats in this hurricane clip:
It is a bit from “Key Largo” in case this doesn’t post properly.
Democrats are going full cloak mode on the carbon tax and anything else that shows their open distain for those in fly over states .Having attacked the energy sector , particularly coal. they can’t afford more self inflicted stupidity . They are going to have to work a lot harder at ballot stuffing, their well practiced ploy .