I Don't Approve My Tax Dollars to do That: Ignore Climate Change

It’s been about a week and a half since superstorm Sandy smashed into the East Coast. We’ve seen remarkable relief efforts and even an unexpected change of heart from New Jersey Governor Christie who sang Obama and the Fed’s praises the week before the election, much to the dismay of the Romney campaign. Today, a snowstorm slammed into the already battered East Coast. An additional 417,000 people on top of those still without power from Sandy are now without power (ABC World News Tonight). So what is this crazy weather that seems increasingly common?

“We have weather on steroids.”

That’s the current situation as described by Eric Cooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund. It’s not so much that climate change is causing storms; instead climate change is making them stronger. Warmer ocean temperatures equates to more energy for storms to feed off of. The atmosphere is warmer and thus retains more moisture, which becomes drawn into storms and dumped on unsuspecting land. It’s also costly. In the last thirty years, not including 2012 data, losses from weather disasters have totaled $1.06 trillion dollars. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-01/weather-on-steroids-is-global-warming-stupid-paul-barrett.html)

Maybe now people will start paying more attention to climate change.

I don’t approve my tax dollars to do that: ignore climate change.