Let’s Talk about the Weather

Climate Change Denial by Both Parties

When Kym and I dropped our two youngest at summer camp this year, we were worried about how they would manage the extreme heat wave coming that week. I sent Rio a message during the week telling him that I hoped they were just letting everyone play in the lake all day. On the drive home from camp, he told me that the lake water was so warm that it wasn’t much help.

Dropping kids off a camp is always a combination of excitement and anxiety. We know they are going to have a wonderful - possibly life altering - experience. And we worry about them as well. We’ve gotten camp nurse calls for ear infections, viruses, sunburns. I will forever be scarred by the day in my camp counselor years that one of my campers smashed his head open and we needed an ambulance somewhere in the middle of nowhere on Mount Rainier.

But we have never worried that our children will die at camp. Especially not from the weather.

Our youngest at summer camp this year.

It’s not just the weather, of course. It’s climate change. But it’s not just climate change either. It’s our ongoing, willful refusal to do a damn thing about it. 

As parents of camp kids, it’s been hard for us to look away from the Texas flooding. As long standing climate advocates it has been even harder. The devastation we have known and warned would come is here. And not long after Texas it was even closer to home - right here in Chapel Hill. As we surveyed and discussed the damage and loss of life here with our children we felt so keenly how this is their future. This will be their normal. 

There has been a lot of talk in the aftermath of these latest floods about “not politicizing a tragedy.” We often hear the same about gun violence in schools. About catastrophic infrastructure failures. I agree that scoring cheap political points would be an affront to the precious lives lost. But I don’t want to politicize it, I want us to learn from it. I want us to do better. Indeed it strikes me that those who say we shouldn’t speak up in moments like this take that position because they actually can’t fathom that some people might actually have a sincere interest in making this world better. Not everyone is primarily motivated by “politics.”

So let’s talk about where we are and how we can do better:

Having now spent several legislative sessions responding to hurricanes, I can tell you that we will generally do everything we can to help people recover from extreme disasters. (This is true for the most part–the legislature often moves too slowly and we are just now learning how new budget rules at FEMA slowed the response in Texas.) Still, there is generally a consensus to at least try to fix what has been broken. 

But fixing the broken is always too little too late. The real question is will we do everything we can to prevent the death and destruction of climate-driven weather disasters before they happen. This prevention now includes two important aspects: 1) Slowing our carbon emissions to limit further climate change; and 2) creating systems and building communities in ways that are responsive to the changed climate we already have. Unfortunately, we are failing at both. 

When it comes to slowing climate change, the Republican party has sadly sunk its head further and further into the sand. Partially because of the industries in their pockets. But also because their “own the libs” orthodoxy seems to have become evangelical about calling climate change a “hoax”, even as the harm of climate change becomes increasingly clear to see. As a result, Trump and the GOP congress are currently engaged in rolling back all efforts that would benefit our climate - encouraging electric vehicles, solar and wind, improving home energy efficiency, making rooftop solar affordable for average families - even while those things would also improve lives for American families and strengthen our economy, irrespective of their climate benefit. This is no longer the fight of the past where renewable energy was pricey and less efficient and there was a fiscal case to be made that continued reliance on fossil fuels would help the working class. No, these days the Republican party is so oblivious to the realities of science, economics, technology, or really anything, that it will cancel successful programs that do nothing but good, simply to fire up a brainwashed base and to hate on anything “progressive.” 

Republicans are usually a bit more willing to invest in “resilience” - the term used for building systems that make harm from climate disasters less severe and easier to recover from. However, even there their reluctance appears to be growing. In the General Assembly this year there were multiple attempts to make it easier to rebuild in areas flooded by Helene but no serious discussion of how to help people and businesses relocate out of flood plains. At the federal level there is a concerted effort to limit any regulatory constraints that would prevent us from building in the wrong places. And the Trump administration just slashed $3 Billion in funding for resilience projects in lower income communities.

Unfortunately, for the most part Democrats have also failed to lead on both emissions reduction and adaptation to our changing climate.

It has been depressing to watch the Democratic Party de-prioritize climate change over the past few years. As I have said before, it should be our job to make popular what needs to be said rather than saying what is already popular. But too many Democrats have ceased leading loudly and clearly on climate change. In my private strategy meetings within the Democratic tent, I am repeatedly advised that climate is not an issue the party will prioritize, and then I watch top tier national and North Carolina Democrats barely mention climate at all. Hurricane Helene, was a clear climate disaster, and while our Democratic leaders have stepped up to address it, many of them studiously avoid linking that crisis to climate change. 

A line I often hear is that we can’t discuss climate when people are only worried about their back pockets. That line is just so short-sighted. The business owners in Eastgate aren’t flourishing because we prioritize things other than climate. The renters in Camelot village are not better off because we willfully ignore the crisis descending on us. 

Moreover, that sort of rhetoric falls far short of actual economic populism, and you can tell because these arguments never come from true economic populists. It’s not hard to do better. The costs of climate change inordinately burden the poorest among us, and we can craft solutions so that the benefits of a green economy help lift those same people up. 

A few years back I was at a fancy restaurant with a group of legislators and I spent most of dinner talking about energy policy with a Republican colleague. He was pro-renewable energy for business reasons, but wouldn’t admit to the existence or harm of climate change. Later that night, our conversation was still going as we sat at a local bar. The waiter from our dinner ended up at the bar as well. Having shed the required etiquette of the fine dining establishment, he asked us “What I want to know is why can’t someone help me get some of that solar for my house so that I can get my energy bills down?” That’s economic populism.

At this point, basically everyone knows that solar and renewable energy is cheaper than oil (it’s the only thing where money falls from the sky!) and better for us (we gotta do something about these killer storms!). Our message has to be simple and straightforward: We can turn back the destructive weather patterns and help out your bottom line by standing up to the corporations that keep your energy bills and gas prices so high.

At the same time, a new trend among progressives is also threatening to upend our leadership on resilience. The so-called “Abundance Agenda” suggests we should be moving more quickly to build much needed housing and green energy infrastructure. There is merit to this call. We badly need both of those things. But alongside those unifying calls, “abundance” advocates are often reinforcing the corporate advocacy to decrease environmental and community protection regulations. Building quickly is no use to us if the places we build cause more harm than good. A more nuanced focus on regulatory reform is much needed–even if it doesn’t sound as sexy or sell as many books. And, as my friend Aaron Regunberg recently argued in The Nation, this is an agenda being fueled (pun intended) by corporate interests, and its adoption risks both our progress on climate and our opportunity to reclaim the economic populism needed for a left that can defeat Trumpism. 

All said, there is plenty of blame to go around about the climate crisis. Just as we hear about the failures of the current Trump administration in Texas, reports are also emerging that Obama-era  FEMA leaders allowed Camp Mystic to remove dozens of buildings from the hundred year flood plain map, allowing them to be built without safeguards. Likewise, Democrats and Republicans have both been at fault for our failure to make progress as swiftly as we need to curb the emissions that are fueling the current crisis. Speaking for myself, I know I have not always been consistently loud enough on this issue. 

We must do better. And talking about these failures is essential. The sad reality is that when it comes to our climate, things are only going to get worse. The pain of climate change we had worried and warned of is happening now. We need to elect leaders who will act both to curb our emissions and build systems and structures that are ready for the new reality we now are facing. More generally, we need to use every opportunity to show people exactly why a functioning, caring government takes on hard challenges because of the good that action yields.

What you can do this week

• If you’re looking for help or to help with addressing the flooding in our area, here’s a great resource page from Triangle Mutual Aid. And Orange County set up a community giving fund.

• Tillis and Budd: Every week we tell you to call Sen. Thom Tillis. Call Sen. Ted Budd too. Now that Tillis has opened a crack between himself and Trump, we need to exploit this. Just ask them to do the right thing, and see how the wedge opens slowly. This week, how about a call to ask them to urge the President to halt his plans to cancel solar and wind energy grants in North Carolina and throughout the country. 

• People often comment that they want me to include phone numbers when I encourage you to call. While I get that request, I also wonder why someone would spend the time typing that out rather than just googling “Call Thom Tills”. Anyhow, try using the 5 Calls app as a very easy way to contact your members of Congress. 

• Good Trouble Lives On: This Thursday is the next chance for the nation to show collective resistance to Trump. Sign up for a Good Trouble Lives On event near you. Kym and I’ll be at the one in Chapel Hill and would love to see you there. 

• Find joy: The one musical act I could see as many times as some of you have seen The Dead (you know who you are!) is Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. They have a delightful new Tiny Desk Concert.

• Find more joy: If you’ve never made ice cream at home, this is a great time of year to try it. Kym has been making simple vanilla to go with poached local peaches. And also more exciting combinations like orange with szechuan pepper (intense!)

Onward,

Graig