Halfway through 2023 and it’s clear that climate changes are triggering catastrophes across the globe. Incredible storms, wildfires, and floods are hammering people everywhere. There has been a record-breaking cyclone in southeastern Africa, an unusually intense typhoon in the Pacific, wildfires in Chile and Canada, unbearable heatwaves across Asia, the southern areas of the United States, as well as parts of Europe, and flooding from extreme rainfalls in Europe and Africa.
And things are expected to get worse. In the most recent reportreleased by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in March, environmental experts predict that at the world’s current rate of collective inaction against the climate crisis, we could be facing 1.5°C temperature rise by the beginning of the 2030s. As such, extreme weather events would increase in frequency and strength.
Unless the world acts far more rapidly, the head of the United Nations has bluntly stated, “Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction. We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.”
No nation, no location will be immune. As Americans in the northeast and eastern coastline choke their way through a second round of smoke from out-of-control Canadian wildfires (triggered by climate change), it’s important to note that this is just another environmental “hit” resulting from a rapidly heating planet – heating that is primarily the result of human activities.
According to a recent analysis by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. has sustained 357 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total cost exceeded $2.54 trillion. So far in 2023 (as of June 8th), there have been nine confirmed weather/climate disaster events to affect the United States, with each loss exceeding $1 billion.
The Canadian wildfires are the most incredible seen in North America. In just one day this past June, it was reported that more forest acreage burned in Canada than burned in all of California last year.
Yet here in New York, the oil lobby and their allies continue to do all they can to erode public support for action.
Big Oil has known for decades that the burning of fossil fuels would trigger the climate changes we are experiencing today. Yet instead of doing the responsible thing and alerting the public, they spent millions on public relations consultants, law firms, lobbyists, and campaign contributions in a successful effort to block actions that could have minimized the global warming threat. They laughed all the way to the bank while the planet continued to heat up as their scientists had predicted.
Now, their allies are arguing that it’s too expensive to tackle the problem and that measures to act are too “radical.”
Let’s look at that assertion. New York State approved a law in 2019 that pledged to achieve “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. That pledge is consistent with what the world’s experts have called for. The law set some interim goals to meet that pledge and established a task force to figure out the details.
That group met and issued its 400+ page report late last year and it is that document that offers the blueprint for legislative and regulatory actions in New York. Due to a lack of political will, much of what the plan called for has not been acted upon by state leaders. One might argue that Albany has been too timid, but it is hardly radical.
What is radical, however, is to undermine science in order to sell products that can push the world to the environmental brink and to advocate for policies that slow down the efforts to save civilization and the environment. Now that’s radical. Dangerously radical.
When you hear that Albany has embraced a “radical” agenda to address climate change, remember that it originates from the oil industry and is advanced by witting or unwitting allies in the service of efforts to maximize oil companies’ riches at the expense of billions of people.
Know that it is they – the oil companies and their allies – that are the real radicals. Radicals who are pushing the world to the brink. Instead, ignore the propaganda and support efforts to eliminate fossil fuels from our economy. That’s not radical, it is simply commonsense. In fact, it’s survival.
Blair Horner is executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.