Staff Writer| The Columbus Dispatch

With the West Coast ablaze and the Gulf Coast drowning, Mother Nature is making a persuasive argument for climate change to play a decisive role in the upcoming presidential election.

Never mind the old adage that you cant do anything about the weather. Scientists have been warning for decades about devastation linked to human activity; they say a public policy focus on carbon emissions can, and must, make a difference.

There may be no issue that presents a clearer choice between President Donald Trump and his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump is a staunch science denier who has spent much of his 3 1/2 years in office undoing about 100 climate regulations enacted in previous administrations.

Biden is ramping up rhetoric on the environment, labeling Trump a climate arsonist and touting his $2 trillion four-year plan with a goal of producing 100% clean energy by 2035.

We need a president who respects science, who understands that the damage from climate change is already here and that unless we take urgent action, itll soon be more catastrophic, Biden said in a Monday speech.

For his part, Trumps plan is to wait and hope things get better on their own.

"It'll start getting cooler. You just watch," the president told a panel of California state officials Monday outside Sacramento.

They had just described West Coast wild fires that have claimed dozens of lives, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and charred millions of acres. Out-of-control blazes once more common in California are now leveling towns and threatening suburbs in Oregon and Washington as well.

"I wish science agreed with you," Wade Crowfoot, Californias natural resources secretary, responded to Trump.

Confirming his credentials as a denier, Trump answered, "I don't think science knows, actually."

Meanwhile, Hurricane Sally soaked coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in a week that saw five active cyclones all churning in the Atlantic Ocean at the same time something that has happened only once before, in 1971.

Voters should review the most recent State of the Climate report released in August by the American Meteorological Society. The National Centers for Environmental Information is responsible for creating this 30th annual report, drawn from contributions by more than 520 scientists in 60 countries around the world.

The report for 2019 highlights many indicators of a warming planet; among them:

Record high levels of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

Near record high global surface temperatures, which puts 2019 among the three warmest years since record-keeping began in the mid-1800s, with July 2019 as the hottest month recorded and each of the past six years being the warmest six years recorded.

Sea surface temperatures as the second-highest recorded, just below highs set in 2016 with a strong El Nino influence.

Record global sea level, setting a new high mark for the eighth year in a row, driven by melting glaciers and ice sheets.

Above average tropical cyclones, with 96 named tropical storms during the storm seasons of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, compared with an average of 82 from 1981-2010, and with five of them reaching the highest level of Category 5 intensity, where wind speeds exceed 155 mph.

These are among the data that scientists cite in support of consistent conclusions that Earths climate is being impacted by human behavior and that changing our behavior can help mitigate the damage.

Critics like to say that Trump tries to greenwash his record on the environment, claiming contrary to the evidence that he is the number one environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt.

HuffPost reported Sept. 8 that Roosevelt protected more than 230 million acres of federal land by establishing five national parks, 18 national monuments and dozens of national forests and wildlife refuges. Trump, by comparison, has weakened protections for 35 million acres and protected just 37,000 acres, HuffPost said.

Biden also takes some flak from environmentalists, but mostly for not going as far left as some in his Democratic Party would. But as he worked for party unity following a contentious primary season, Biden has stepped up proposals for addressing climate change and is selling his plan as economic development.

The former vice president vows to create 1 million jobs with carmakers and suppliers by transforming the federal fleet of vehicles from gas to electric and building 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations along the nations highways. Biden also sees job growth in cleaning up abandoned oil and gas wells and polluted industrial sites.

The Trump record on the environment is best assessed by his actions, not his words. He went against allies and domestic pleas to take the United States out of the Paris agreement on climate change, is opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, has reduced restrictions on air and water pollution and has moved to repeal about 100 environmental regulations.

Most telling, he has called climate change a hoax his code word for just about anything that threatens his personal and family business interests.

Biden sides with scientists around the world in calling out the harmful effects of continuing to rely on carbon-based fossil fuels and offers a plan to invest in a future fueled by cleaner energy.

The differences between the Republican president and former Democratic vice president on the environment are stark, and Trump is on the wrong side of this issue.

Originally posted here:
Editorial: Bet on Biden to stand up to climate change - The Columbus Dispatch