“Let’s assume it’s true, this idea that carbon emissions cause climate change, let’s not argue about weird science,” said JD Vance, the candidate for vice president of the United States who is teaming up with Donald Trump, in the debate television with Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-president on the democratic presidential list on November 5th.
“Weird.” Weird, strange. A word that Tim Walz introduced into the election campaign and that went viralin reaction to statements by JD Vance, and which probably guaranteed him the place as Democratic candidate for vice president next to Kamala Harris.
Vance took up this word in debate between the two on Tuesday when he was asked what he thought about climate change. He used it for climate change in the box of hypotheses, of opinions expressed by his political opponents. “Some of our Democratic colleagues say that carbon emissions cause climate change…”, stated the 40-year-old senator elected from Ohio.
“The reality: scientists around the world say that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change”, replied, on X, the well-known climate scientist Michael Mann.
The question came about the impact of the hurricane Helene in the southeastern United States – which has already 189 deadaccording to the Associated Press, making it the deadliest hurricane since the Katrina destroyed New Orleans in 2005.
Two rapid attribution studies that assess the impact of climate change on extreme meteorological phenomena – such as major hurricanes – released on Tuesday concluded that human activity, that is, carbon dioxide emissions that increase the greenhouse effect on Earth, caused an increase in the amount of rain brought by the Helene to the United States.
The consortium ClimaMeterwhich brings together several European scientists, concluded that the rainfall was up to 20% more intense and the winds 7% stronger, summarized the NBC News. The abnormally high water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico was a decisive factor in the intensification of the storm and the enormous flooding it caused in the Southeast of the USA.
Another report, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of the US, suggests that the influence of global warming has generated 50% more rain over parts of Georgia and the Carolinas than would be expected.
The administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell, acknowledged that the catastrophe caused by the hurricane Helene is related to climate change. “In the past, damage was mainly caused by wind, but now we are seeing more damage caused by water. This has to do with the warming of the water [do mar]which is a result of climate change,” he said on CBS.
Still, Vance, who strove to present a polished image, far from the frenzied radical who criticizes political options of “cat ladies“was more civilized than Donald Trump. The former President continues to say that climate change is a fraud, and to confuse meteorology with climate – now the planet is colderit’s been hotter, one day it rains, the next it’s sunny…
Trump classifies the Joe Biden Administration’s economic stimulus policy for the development of green technologies and ecological transition as “a fraud.” And, if he is elected, he will once again bring with him the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement and the repeal of measures and programs to protect the environment and climate. This is included in the measures of the Project 2025the instruction manual for Donald Trump’s second presidency. The former President doesn’t like electric cars, although perhaps Elon Musk still manage to convince him to surpass this confusion.
Climate change (37%) is the last topic on the list of issues that most concern North Americans, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center released in September, with the economy (81%) at the forefront. There continues to be great partisanship in the way the issue is viewed (11% of Republicans and 62% of Democrats highlight climate as a concern).
But the relationship between human activity (emissions) and climate change has been taking root in the consciousness of North Americans. In 2024, it will be accepted by 78% of the population, a another pollfrom the University of Chicago Energy Policy Institute and the Associated Press, released in June. However, there continues to be a great political polarization: while 93% of Democrats share this opinion, among Republicans only 62% adhere to it. Even so, it is more than half of the conservative electorate.
Despite this, one of the presidential candidates, still with a serious chance of winning, is a climate denier, who openly courts money and support from companies producing fossil energy, frequently participating in meetings of fundraising with oil companies.
There is a gap between the political offer and what the majority of citizens think – which happens in many countries. If this disagreement leads to the election of Trump and Vance to the White House on November 5th, what happens in the United States will not just stay in the United States; A new political hurricane will encircle the world, and the goals of limiting climate change will be caught by the storm.
