Obama should declare a climate emergency
To prevent an increasing number of calamities, the president should declare a national emergency and summon leaders to Washington to craft solutions to the climate crisis.
Photo by CraneStation on Flickr Creative Commons
Four governors and President Obama recently issued emergency declarations after millions were left without power in the midst of a sweltering heat wave. The governor of Colorado did the same for counties affected by catastrophic wildfires. The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued its largest disaster declaration ever, covering more than 1,000 counties facing drought — including portions of southeast Oregon.
But the real emergency continues unacknowledged and unabated.
To prevent an increasing number of calamities, the president should declare a national emergency and summon leaders to Washington to craft solutions to the climate crisis.
For decades climate scientists have told us that the continued emission of greenhouse gases, combined with the loss of forests that sequester carbon, would produce more frequent and intense heat waves, windstorms, rainstorms, floods, droughts and other extreme events. We are now paying the piper.
This summer’s heat waves have broken thousands of temperature records and cost at least 30 lives. And we ain’t seen nothing yet.
