9/7/2017

"EPA chief on Irma: The time to talk climate change isn't now"

https://tinyurl.com/yd7thw85

      Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was interviewed to hear his thoughts on hurricane Irma. In his interview Pruitt stated that "To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced." He then followed this by saying: "What we need to focus on is access to clean water, addressing these areas of superfund activities that may cause an attack on water, these issues of access to fuel. ... Those are things so important to citizens of Florida right now, and to discuss the cause and effect of these storms, there's the... place (and time) to do that, it's not now." According to Pruitt the EPA is currently only focusing on providing people in Florida the assistance they need and it is up to Congress to approach the and begin discussing whether Irma was a direct result of climate change. As far as Pruitt is concerned discussions of that sort are insensitive to the people of Florida.

      With a Government that is actively taking step backwards when it comes to climate change I disagree with the idea that this is the wrong time to discuss climate change. The Trump Administration has not made global warming a central issue. With the President looking to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Accord I believe there is no better time than now to begin discussion on what caused this storm.  The tragedy that came with Irma and Harvey is still fresh in people's minds and because of this informing the public that their is a direct correlation between these hurricanes and climate change can make a large impact on public policy regarding climate change in the future. 

      It is clear to me that we should be expanding most of our effort into providing support to those who suffered through these hurricanes but we should NOT outright ignore the bigger picture here. We should make a conscious effort to help people now as well in the future by preventing hurricanes like Irma and Harvey occurring in rapid succession. This can only be done if people begin to acknowledge that our atmosphere as well as our climate is unnatural and will ultimately put us at a greater risk of devastating natural disasters. After acknowledging this hopefully we can begin to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by joining other countries in international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol that have made great strides in overcoming climate change.