“What a crowd, what a turnout,” President Trump called out at Corpus Christi, Texas, ground zero for the ruin brought by Hurricane Harvey. His tone was that of a used car salesman at a ribbon-cutting. Supporters and hurricane survivors were roped off, and the crying of sirens filled the background. Perhaps no other moment defines our era so well.
It’s easy to become angry at Trump’s nonchalance, but it’s more difficult to appreciate this moment: the president, a bumbling reality television host, standing amidst the ruins of a major U.S. city and simply having a perfect face-palm moment.
Enjoy the humor now, because this event and Trump’s response hints toward a preview of the coming century. What's coming is a country of political decay, displaced poor people and flooded cities.
Once Texas assesses the damage and starts to rebuild, the conversation will shift to climate change, and skeptics and right-wingers alike will write off any attempts to link Hurricane Harvey and the existential crisis of climate change.
Perhaps saying climate change caused Hurricane Harvey isn’t semantically appropriate, but basic hurricane science coupled with rising sea temperatures prove that climate change set the conditions that exacerbated Hurricane Harvey and allowed it to thrive.
Climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research explained the storm in this succinct statement: “Harvey was not caused by climate change, yet its impacts — the storm surge, and especially the extreme rainfall — very likely worsened due to human-caused global warming.”
An article from ProPublica, a nonprofit public interest newsroom, and the Texas Tribune from over a year ago proves that Houston and Texas officials not only knew flooding in Houston was a matter of “not if, but when,” but found themselves powerless to do anything.
George P. Bush, Texas’ land commissioner and grandson of President Bush Sr., was tasked with assessing Houston’s risk of flooding, and, referencing attempts at flood prevention, said in the article that they "may not even see the completion of this project in our lifetimes.”
In the same article, a Rice University engineering professor quite ominously claimed, “We’re sitting ducks. We’ve done nothing.” Also, in a now-embarrassing statement, the office of Houston mayor Sylvester Turner commented, “Only a small portion of the city of Houston is at risk for major storm surge.”
The new normal emerging out of Houston truly calls into question the state at which the world can respond to future mass disasters.
This brings us back to President Trump, who doesn’t even have a climate change policy because he operates on the assumption of its nonexistence. We are in the unenviable spot of having a president backed by a Republican political organization committed to the destruction of life on this planet through its climate policies.
The current situation in southeastern Texas paints a bleak picture of our future.
luwrobin@indiana.edu
@lucas__robinson
