Matthew Lavietes -
Previously overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s racial reckoning, climate change has hurled to the front of the US presidential race, as historic wildfires raged in the West and powerful storms battered the South.
Last week, Democratic contender Joe Biden tackled the issue of extreme weather from his home base in Delaware, calling US President Donald Trump a “climate arsonist” for failing to acknowledge the role of global warming in the Western wildfires. His Republican rival - despite disputing any climate change fingerprint in California’s fires, the largest in the state’s history - made a last-minute trip there to meet state officials and firefighters.
Edward Maibach, Director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, said the recent fires and storms had dominated the news cycle and pressed the point. “It’s forced the issue of extreme weather and climate change into the election,” he said.
Dozens of wildfires have raged across California and the Pacific Northwest, scorching more than 4.5 million acres within several weeks and killing several dozen people. The fires also have filled the air with harmful levels of smoke and soot, turning skies eerie shades of orange and sepia while worsening the public health crisis caused by COVID-19.
Simultaneously, Hurricane Sally pummeled the Gulf Coast last Wednesday, marking the 18th named storm in the Atlantic this year and the eighth to hit the United States with a tropical storm or hurricane strength.
Climate change may be a factor making storms like Sally move more slowly, scientists say, leading to catastrophic amounts of rainfall and widespread flooding.
Last week also saw the appearance of five named storms at once in the Atlantic, a rarity that has not happened since 1971, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “What’s very clear is that the record-setting extreme events of the past couple of months have captured the entire nation’s morbid fascination,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication.
“People are just ... reeling,” he added.
Nonetheless, polling in the months leading up to and through the recent destructive weather has shown that voters rank climate change behind other priorities, including the pandemic — which has killed nearly 200,000 Americans — and the economy.
A new poll conducted by the University of Southern California from August 25 through September 13, while the fires were ablaze, showed only 4 per cent of Americans naming climate change as their top issue when voting. — Thomson Reuters Foundation
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
