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June 12, 2008

ENVIRONMENT
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, Benjamin
Armbruster, and Brad Johnson

The evidence for the consequences of global warming is appearing with alarming
frequency. This morning's headlines are filled with tales of deadly weather: "At least
four people were killed and about 40 injured when a tornado tore through a Boy
Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night"; "two people are dead in northern
Kansas after tornadoes cut a diagonal path across the state"; "[t]wo Maryland men
with heart conditions died this week" from the East Coast heat wave. These eight
deaths come on top of reports earlier this week that the heat wave "claimed the lives
of 17 people" and the wave of deadly storms killed 11 more: "six in Michigan, two in
Indiana and one each in Iowa and Connecticut," as well as one man in New York.
Tornadoes this year are being reported at record levels. States of emergency have
been declared in Minnesota, California, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Michigan
because of floods and wildfires. Counties in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota, and
Wisconsin have been declared disaster areas due to the historic flooding that has
breached dams, inundated towns, and caused major crop damage, sending
commodity futures to new records. The floodwaters are continuing down the
Mississippi River, with "crests of 10 feet or more above flood level" for "at least the
next two weeks."
GLOBAL BOILING: This tragic, deadly, and destructive weather -- not to mention the
droughts in Georgia, California, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, North
Dakota, and elsewhere across the country -- are consistent with the changes
scientists predicted would come with global warming. Gov. Chet Culver (D-IA) called
the three weeks of storms that gave rise to the floods in his state "historic in
proportion," saying "very few people could anticipate or prepare for that type of
event." Culver is, unfortunately, wrong. As far back as 1995, analysis by the National
Climatic Data Center showed that the United States "had suffered a statistically
significant increase in a variety of extreme weather events." In 2007, the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that it is "very likely"
that man-made global warming will bring an "increase in frequency of hot extremes,
heat waves and heavy precipitation." The Nobel Prize-winning panel of thousands of
scientists and government officials also found, "Altered frequencies and intensities of
extreme weather, together with sea level rise, are expected to have mostly adverse
effects on natural and human systems." In 2002, scientists said that "increased
precipitation, an expected outcome of climate change, may cause losses of US corn
production to double over the next 30 years -- additional damage that could cost
agriculture $3 billion per year." Scientists have also found that the "West will see
devastating droughts as global warming reduces the amount of mountain snow and
causes the snow that does fall to melt earlier in the year."
WAKE-UP CALL?: Of the Memorial Day storms that killed eight people and "led to
about $160 million in claims," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) rose on the Senate floor on
June 5 to say, "the storm may serve as a wake-up call to those of us who have
become somewhat complacent about severe weather warnings." The next day,
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Grassley joined 37 of his colleagues to filibuster climate legislation, the Lieberman-

Warner Climate Security Act. This week, he and other conservatives filibustered two
more bills to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and support renewable energy
and energy efficiency. In response to "[T]he most destructive flood in Indiana
history," estimated to have caused "$126 million in damages," Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-
IN) told reporters that President Bush "called 'simply to inquire about how Hoosiers
were getting through this, and to ask me -- as I have asked local officials -- was his
level of government doing all it can to support us here and to cooperate with us? I
told him, 'So far, so good.'" At the beginning of the month, Bush said he would veto
these climate and clean energy bills if they came to his desk, declaring, "I urge the
Congress to be very careful about running up enormous costs for future generations
of Americans."
'TURNING THE KNOB': Although the deadly weather has been front-page news all
season, and news channels dedicate hours of coverage to "Extreme Weather," the
media are strangely reluctant to discuss severe weather events in the context of
climate change. Perhaps some of the reason is the virulent response from the right
wing whenever a journalist or scientist dares to discuss how "the upsurge in the
number and power of the deadly storms could be related to a warming climate." In a
rare instance of good coverage, ABC's Good Morning America ran a segment on
Monday about the East Coast heat wave that noted "90 records have been tied or
broken" across the East and interviewed eminent climatologist Dr. Stephen
Schneider. Schneider explained, "While this heat wave like all other heat waves is
made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making
a little bit hotter." Schneider then pointed out that we are making the climate hotter
through carbon dioxide and methane emissions. In response, the right-wing media
outlet Newsbusters wrote that Schneider "Blames Greenhouse Gases for Current
Heat Wave," saying, "[G]lobal warming activists have another way to frighten the
public -- using steamy weather to suggest human greenhouse gas emissions are
worsening a heat wave."