“The new report makes clear that the science linking worsening extreme weather events to climate change is rigorous and sound,” John Fleming, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. “Next time your community is hit by a heat wave or flash flood, put some of the blame on Big Oil. This report is another sign that we need to move away from this dangerous and polluting industry.”
The National Academies report, or NASEM, builds on a 2016 report on the same topic, and tracks progress since then in linking specific extreme weather events like hurricanes or heatwaves to human-caused global warming — an area known as extreme event attribution (EEA). It found that a combination of improvements in tools, datasets and methods has made such attributions increasingly reliable, especially for events clearly associated with higher average temperatures such as heatwaves, cold spells and heavy rains.
“The science is clear: the extreme heat that killed thousands of people in the Northern Hemisphere this summer is neither an unpredictable event nor an accident, but rather the result of corporate crime.”
“Significant progress has been made over the past decade, with significant advances in methods and modeling that allow for more robust assessments of extreme events,” said James Horrell, who chaired the report committee and serves as the Scott Presidential Chair in Environmental Science and Engineering at Colorado State University. He said In a statement.
The EEA can still improve when it comes to analyzing the climate footprint on smaller scale weather events such as thunderstorms and hurricanes, as well as attributing events in parts of the Global South where climate data is less available.
“This field continues to face challenges that need to be addressed to fully realize the value of attribution science,” Horrell continued. “We hope our recommendations will guide those efforts.”
Unaffiliated climate scientists and environmental advocates welcomed the report’s findings.
“The strong conclusions reached by the mainstream climate research community betray the dismissive claims that continue to be made by fossil fuel industry groups, right-wing think tanks, and Republican activists who feel threatened by scientific progress in this very area.” books Climate scientist and University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Mann. “they I understood a long time ago…that Americans will increasingly demand meaningful policy action on climate as they come to understand the profound role that burning fossil fuels plays in the worsening climate crisis.
“Nothing connects the dots better than increasingly dangerous, destructive, and deadly climate change that has fueled extreme weather events,” Mann continued. “Regardless, I could see and smell the smoke from the dangerous wildfires blanketing the northeastern United States while on vacation with my family in New Hampshire this week. Increasingly, Americans are connecting the dots between our dependence on fossil fuels and the risks we face, whether Costly and dangerous wars of choice “In remote lands such as Iran, or the threat of increasingly extreme weather events.”
“Attribution science confirms what billions of people around the world have witnessed firsthand — deadly events like extreme heatwaves are occurring more often and tropical cyclones are more intense due to climate change,” Carly Phillips, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) who co-authored the attribution studies, said in a statement. “Despite efforts by the fossil fuel industry and its cronies to intimidate committee members and distort research, the Academies’ report confirms the scientific consensus: Attribution science relies on rigorous, peer-reviewed methods.” peers and provides important information about how climate change is causing an increase in the frequency or intensity of extreme events.
The report is noteworthy not only because of its findings, but also because of its context. Its publication comes amid the Trump administration’s aggressive climate denial, including the EPA’s rescission of a so-called “danger finding” linking carbon dioxide emissions to climate and public health damage.
Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry and its right-wing political allies are scrambling to find a way out of the growing number of lawsuits trying to hold them liable for damage from the climate crisis. This has included pushing bills in the House and Senate that would give the industry immunity from any lawsuits over damages resulting from the use of its products.
Both the fossil fuel industry and climate justice advocates see the NASEM report as a potential weapon in the battle over climate responsibility. Argus Insight, an opposition research firm co-founded by former Trump staffers with a history of working to undermine climate lawsuits, has sent at least nine records requests to the public universities where the NASEM report’s authors work, as has Politico. I mentioned Before its release.
Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, It is recommended That journalists covering the NASEM report “don’t put any story under the headline ‘Can we believe extreme event attribution research?’” The actual story is: Fossil fuel stakeholders are getting their pants wet about this and will do anything to try to stop it.
However, climate justice advocates argue that the report favors communities over industry.
“For decades, Big Oil has intentionally poisoned our atmosphere and deceived the public about the impacts of burning fossil fuels — all while lining the pockets of CEOs as communities continue to suffer from extreme heat, floods, and fires,” Stephanie Brancaforte, climate accountability campaign director at Citizens Public Climate Program, said in a statement.
“The science is clear: The extreme heat that killed thousands of people in the Northern Hemisphere this summer is neither an unpredictable event nor an accident — it is the result of corporate crime,” Brancaforte added. “With support from the National Academies, survivors of climate disasters now have strong evidence to seek justice against fossil fuel polluters to pay for the devastation they have caused.”
Cassidy DePaola, Communications Director for Make Polluters Pay, said: “The National Academies have just given courts, cities, and communities something they have long needed: the full weight of the nation’s most authoritative scientific body behind attribution science. And it confirms what researchers and international bodies like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are saying.” [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] We have long known that we can say with real confidence which extreme weather events are exacerbated by fossil fuel pollution, and how much damage the pollution has caused.
“The fossil fuel industry understands exactly what this means,” DePaola continued. “That’s why they’ve spent years trying to discredit attribution science as a field, and why they and their allies in Congress and state legislatures are now racing to pass liability protection laws. They can’t out-argue hundreds of peer-reviewed studies backed by the nation’s most respected scientific establishment, so instead they’re trying to make the law immune to science. They know that this research not only describes a hotter world, but It draws a line between its products and specific floods, heat waves and deaths, and from there to who should pay for the damages.
“Attribution science now underpins how cities plan for disasters, how insurance companies price risk, how public health officials prepare for heat deaths, and how courts weigh accountability,” she concluded. “The only people who have an interest in pretending otherwise are the people who are being asked to pay for the damage they have caused.”
Source link
