Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019 | 9:13 p.m.
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Heat waves in Southern Nevada are growing in duration and intensity, fueling a nearly five-fold increase in heat-related deaths here in the past six years. Las Vegas is the fastest-warming city in the United States, outpacing such scorching cities as Phoenix and El Paso, Texas. Air quality in Nevada and other Western states is at a 10-year low due to drought-fueled wildfires.
These recent news items, and others like them, speak to an inescapable truth: Before our eyes, climate change is transforming Las Vegas for the worse.
This is something well worth considering for local voters with the 2020 election less than a year away. The Republican Party's climate denial is becoming an increasingly serious threat to our community's livability and viability.
This is not a matter of conjecture. Heat-related deaths in Clark County are spiraling upward — from 37 in 2014 to 179 last year. Also skyrocketing are health issues related to plunging air quality, such as heart attacks, strokes, emphysema and asthma. And with no end in sight to the drought, the first-ever cuts to allocations of water from Lake Mead are scheduled for next year.
Meanwhile, a recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists painted a dire future for Las Vegas short of significant reductions in global carbon emissions. The UCS predicted the city would experience more than 60 days of temperatures above 105 degrees annually by the end of the century, and at least seven "off the chart" days that would greatly exceed current records.
These changes are being fueled partly by the weather, partly by greenhouse gas emissions and partly by the growth of our community. As we expand, we fill the desert with concrete, asphalt and other materials that absorb and retain heat.
In dealing with that heat island effect, we can help ourselves through smarter designs of homes, buildings, public spaces. The Urban Design Institute issued an excellent report this year offering a number of heat-reducing strategies, such as building shade canopies and clustering structures so that they shade each other, installing light-colored roofing and prioritizing the preservation of green or open space on new development parcels.
But let's not kid ourselves, the real solution is to take action on global warming by reducing carbon emissions.
And that's where Republicans are pushing us back.
This past week, the Trump administration followed through on its destructive plan to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, formally notifying the global community of its intent to pull out next fall. The U.S. will become the only nation to back out of the accord, which has been ratified by 185 countries.
This is insanity. Scientists' warnings about the effects of climate change have intensified significantly in the past year, with a growing chorus saying catastrophic damage will occur much sooner than previously believed unless drastic actions are taken to cut carbon emissions and lower the global temperature. The scope of the damage described in reports is so broad it's impossible to thoroughly catalog it here: food security, water scarcity, catastrophic weather events, mass extinctions of plant and animal life, widescale human migrations, etc.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is the world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and is being steered in the wrong direction by President Donald Trump and GOP leadership.
States like Nevada have stepped up by setting higher standards for renewable energy generation and taking other steps to reduce carbon emissions, but next year's election will be critical in getting national policy back on track and keeping Nevada on course.
In the past two elections, Silver State voters have overwhelmingly supported reasonable, responsible candidates who understand the urgent need to address climate issues. As the effects of climate change grow more evident every day, there's every reason to believe voters will take that same sentiment to the polls in 2020.
That being the case, Republican candidates should understand that it will be politically poisonous for them to cling to their party's destructive stance on environmental issues. Wise GOP hopefuls will break ranks from their party on the issue. Not only is it good politics in Nevada, it's the right thing to do.
Remember, there was a time when Republicans were willing to listen to science and face the fact that the climate was changing. In 2008, Newt Gingrich appeared shoulder-to-shoulder with Nancy Pelosi in a TV ad and stated, "We do agree, our country must take action to address climate change."
But what an ugly difference 11 years makes. The Republican Party is so locked into climate denial that Gingrich tried to walk back the ad, saying his message was "misconstrued" and that he regretted appearing in the spot.
In 2016 and 2018, Southern Nevadans showed they'd had enough of that type of extremism. So Republican candidates should be on notice heading into next year's election: Voters here are holding them responsible for the alarming environmental changes that are happening before our eyes and are threatening the future of our community.
