Hoaxes and Blaming and Climate Change, Oh My!
Warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico — oops, the Gulf of America — have become a fueling station for hurricanes, witness the overnight growth of Hurricane Helene, which did billions of dollars flood damage in the Carolinas.
I have warm memories of Hawaiian-language liturgy at the beautiful Church of the Holy Innocents at Lahaina on Maui. It is no more, burned along with much of the Hawaiian town. Lahaina suffered a catastrophe triggered by three climate-related causes. Prolonged drought had dried island vegetation, especially former sugar plantation land. An offshore hurricane triggered high winds. The winds transformed a small fire, thought to be extinguished, into a deadly conflagration.
We first heard warnings of climate change in the hot summer of 1988. In years since, the United Nations has sponsored conferences, corporations have reduced their carbon footprint, coal plants have closed, and some universities and pension funds have divested from energy stocks.
But a key actor, the American government, has been slow to act. The carbon economy has maintained a grip on our nation’s capital and economy, resisting a transformation in energy sources. The world is falling short of modest goals of limiting the increase in carbon emissions set in the Paris accords. The energy industry and Republican Party have adopted as the battle cry for expanded drilling in the rapidly-warming Arctic, “Drill, baby, drill.”
https://www.postalley.org/2025/01/18/hoaxes-and-blaming-and-climate-change-oh-my/