Hurricanes Don’t Move Republicans on Climate, Politico Bemoans; They Shouldn’t

A recent article in Politico bemoans the fact that Republicans representing districts which recently suffered deaths, injuries, and severe damage from back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton, have not blamed climate change for the dual event and embraced sharp restrictions on fossil fuels to prevent climate change and future hurricanes. The Republicans cited in the story are right to not blame climate change for the suffering their constituents are undergoing, since data show hurricanes have neither increased in strength or number during the recent modest warming. Limiting fossil fuel use would hinder, not improve the situation in Florida and elsewhere where hurricanes have been common throughout history.

Emma Dumain, the author of the Politico story, “Hurricanes do little to move Republicans on climate,” writes:

Two major hurricanes hitting the same region of the country just weeks apart are not moving the needle for most congressional Republicans when it comes to endorsing tougher action against climate change.

After Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated huge swaths of the Southwest [she must mean Southeast] and continue to stress the limits of federal disaster relief coffers, Republicans are by and large still not ready to change the way they react and respond to natural disasters, which studies show to be growing in both intensity and frequency as global warming persists.

“As Governor [Ron] DeSantis noted … major hurricanes are a natural phenomenon that have been a part of Florida life dating back to the 1800s,” said Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), whose district was affected by both storms.

Webster was one of 42 GOP members of the House and Senate contacted by POLITICO’s E&E News this week, asking if they believed the severity of the storms were exacerbated by global warming and if those storms would motivate lawmakers to endorse reducing greenhouse gas emissions — many of them from burning fossil fuels — that scientists call the major cause of climate change.

Politico is flat wrong concerning changes in hurricanes in response to climate change. As discussed at Climate at a Glance, measured data show that neither Atlantic Hurricanes nor Tropical Cyclones have increased in frequency or in strength. (See the Figures, below) In fact, multiple studies suggest that over the past century, the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones have declined, with one report finding a 13 percent decrease in tropical cyclones between 1850 and 2012.

Globally, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) observes there is, “only low confidence for the attribution of any detectable changes in tropical cyclone activity to anthropogenic influences.” In fact, looking forward, the IPCC forecast no detectable impact of climate change on hurricanes/tropical cyclones under even the most extreme emissions scenario by 2050 or even 2100. (See the chart, below)

In the United States hurricane impacts have recently been at an all-time low. The United States recently went more than a decade (2005 through 2017) without a major hurricane measuring Category 3 or higher, which is the longest such period in recorded history. The United States also recently experienced the fewest number of hurricane strikes in any eight-year period (2009 through 2017) in recorded history, data from the National Hurricane Center shows.

Sorry, Politico, these are facts, not false assertions that hurricanes are getting worse from a left-wing media outlet.

Concerning the damage caused by the recent hurricanes, yes, it is high, but that’s not because the timing or the severity of the storms was in any way unusual, but rather because of the expanding bullseye effect. More people, with more, and more expensive, property and infrastructure live in hurricane prone areas than ever before. As more and more people move to, and communities and cities expand in, areas that are historically disaster prone, building ever more expensive homes, retail developments, and infrastructure, when natural disasters strike, naturally more people and structures are putting themselves in harm’s way. Thus, the higher costs aren’t due to climate change but simply because more, more valuable, assets are at risk from demographic shifts in where people live and the lifestyles they pursue.

Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) told Politico as much in responding to a request for comments for its story.

“We have all these false narratives,” Díaz-Balart told Politico. “It is true that disaster costs have been rising, but when you’re talking about economic losses — that’s not the increase of hurricane strength over time … Even the United Nations admits there is no evidence that human activity is increasing the strength and frequency of the hurricanes.”

Sorry, Politico, Diaz-Balart is right, and you are wrong when you write the evidence is “far from ambiguous.” Concerning hurricanes the evidence is clear. They have not become more powerful or more frequent as the planet has modestly warmed. Politico’s readers would be better able to make informed choices about where to live and who to vote for if Dumain and Politico’s editors checked the facts first before the outlet publishes its next story on hurricanes.