During the debate on Tuesday night, Vice Presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz were asked to comment on the devastation from category 4 Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.
Vance called it “an unbelievable, unspeakable human tragedy,” but avoided questions on the role climate change played in this event.
He only accepted that climate change may have hypothetically made the issue worse, but still finds the connection unclear.
Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the warming of Earth’s oceans has contributed to stronger, more frequent tropical storms. The amount of category 3 or higher hurricanes has tripled in the last 100 years and doubled since 1980 according to research from the Environmental Defense Fund.
Walz made it a point to acknowledge how this hurricane is noticeably worse than others we have seen before, and directly linked its devastation to the effects of climate change.
He also slammed Former President Donald Trump for previously calling the issue a “hoax” and joking that these events would create more oceanfront property.
Walz also highlighted the Biden-Harris administration’s improvements on climate change. He cited historic investments into domestic solar panel and electric vehicle manufacturing and massive increases in clean energy production.
Vance has not been silent on the issue of climate in the past, but since attaching himself to Trump and MAGA Republicans, he has taken a dangerous stance on the issue. In 2020, he spoke at Ohio State University about the “climate problem” he said was impacting our society. Vance said fossil fuels are preventing us from having a clean energy future.
However, during his Senate race in 2022, Vance received more than $283,000 from the oil and gas industry and began echoing conservatives’ skepticism of the climate crisis.
Tragedies such as Hurricane Helene will continue to happen. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association predicts that this season will see above average hurricane activity, which could spell disaster for coastal communities.
This year, Hurricane Beryl, the earliest developing category-5 hurricane in the Atlantic Basin, devastated several islands in the Caribbean Sea as well as the coast of Texas and Louisiana.
If we do not have strong leadership that is committed to limiting the effects of climate change, these disasters will only get more frequent and more destructive. Trump and Vance will put us on a path of global destruction with their positions on the issue, but Harris and Walz are not so innocent either.
Harris has reversed her stance on hydraulic fracking. In 2019 she said she firmly opposed the controversial drilling technique but abandoned that stance when she joined Joe Biden on his presidential ticket. Now, she says she would oppose an outright ban.
Fracking has been cited as potentially worse for the environment than other forms of fossil fuel drilling because it can contaminate groundwater and damage wildlife. It also produces methane gas, which warms the planet faster than carbon dioxide.
Her unwillingness to support a ban is an indication she may not be willing to take the necessary steps to reduce America’s dependence of fossil fuels. Candidates need to take a harder stance to mitigate climate change. Americans are paying the price of their negligence, and it needs to change.
This story was written by Joey Schamber. He can be reached at [email protected]
