Wednesday, April 10, 2019 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
President Donald Trump could break up their panel, but he couldn’t stop their work or silence their voices.
Last week, the members of an Obama-era climate group that was disbanded by Trump in 2017 issued a new report after reassembling independently and completing its work.
To those dedicated scientists and researchers, here’s a long-distance pat on the back. Their message — that a muddled response to climate change was putting Americans at greater risk of flooding, wildfires and other disasters related to global warming — needed to be heard.
“We were concerned that the federal government is missing an opportunity to get better information into the hands of those who prepare for what we have already unleashed,” said Columbia University scientist Richard Moss, who chaired the federal panel, in an interview published in The Guardian. “We’re only just starting to see the effects of climate change, it’s only going to get much worse. But we haven’t yet rearranged our daily affairs to adapt to (the) science we have.”
The group’s recommendations center mostly on steps helping state and local levels get the information and technical support they need to assess their risk and establish climate plans. Currently, the report notes, planning is being done haphazardly across the nation even while storms, fires and drought have put the U.S. economy on track to lose $500 billion a year from climate change.
“Imagine working in state or county government,” Moss told The Guardian. “You have a road that is flooding frequently and you get three design options all with different engineering. You don’t have the capacity to know what is the best option to avoid flooding, you just know what costs more.
“Climate issues aren’t being raised in communities. They may know they are vulnerable but they don’t know whether to use, for example, wetlands or a flood wall to stop flooding. We need to establish best practices and guide people on how to apply that locally.”
To do that, the group recommends creating a civil-based network of private and public interests to create standardized recommendations and expert advice to communities. The report is available on the American Meteorological Society’s site: ametsoc.org.
Moss and his colleagues were part of the 15-member Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment formed by President Barack Obama.
The group was resurrected at the invitation of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and drew financial support from the AMS and Columbia. Not only that, but five more scientists joined it.
Their dedication is refreshing and encouraging.
Although conservationists and environmental scientists have generally faced an uphill climb, that’s especially the case under Trump. His presidency has been an outright disaster for the environment and wild places.
So it’s critical for responsible, reasonable Americans like the scientists on the panel to keep countering Trump and others who, out of ignorance or a crass political desire to appeal to right-wing extremists, refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence showing that humans are causing climate change.
The risks certainly aren’t subsiding, especially with Trump in the White House. Witness the report last week from the National Interagency Fire Center showing an above-normal risk of wildfires this year in Southern Nevada, as well as portions of Arizona, Utah, Alaska, Washington and Oregon, plus all of Hawaii. Although a wet winter and spring have reduced the threat level in California, officials are warning that moisture could be a curse in disguise if the state experiences dry and windy conditions later. If that occurs, the vegetation that has sprouted during the wet weather will dry up and become fuel for fires.
Meanwhile, coastal communities are contending with rising sea levels that threaten to displace millions of people. Things are getting worse on that front too — a recent report from the World Glacier Monitoring Service said glaciers were melting 18 percent faster than the rate scientists had calculated in 2013. As such, communities are spending billions of dollars relocating infrastructure in low-lying areas and embarking on such initiatives as the $425 million sea wall project approved by voters in San Francisco.
And then there’s the threat of hurricanes and major storms, which have increased in intensity in recent years.
To their credit, industry forces and state leaders have recognized the need to reduce the greenhouse gases that are fueling the problem. That includes businesses, officials and voters in Nevada, who approved a ballot measure that would require that by 2035, at least 50 percent of the energy consumed in the state be generated from renewable sources.
Efforts like these must continue. Resting isn’t an option as Trump wages war on the environment.
