Inhospitable climate: GOP's disdain of science helps foul air again

The air has been impressively bad this past week. I’m having to skip my daily bike rides and, like everyone else, stay inside as much as possible.

So it was perhaps, then, understandable when I got furious when I read what some Michigan politicians said about the fires.

For me, it requires a specific combination of stupidity, ignoring expertise and thinking that the voting public will fall for silly grandstanding. At a basic level, politicians are supposed to solve public problems. If you can’t do that, find another job.

In this case, I accidentally heard what four U.S. representatives said about the Canadian wildfires causing our horrendous air quality. The four, Republicans Jack Bergman, John James, Lisa McClain and John Moolenaar, complained about the Canadian government’s efforts to fight the wildfires.

Two passages from their joint statement stick out. First, they discuss the wildfire causes but fail to mention climate change. Are they even trying to solve these problems?

I’ll admit that some effects of climate change are subtle, such as the acidification of the oceans, the greater water-carrying capacity of the atmosphere or the strengthening of hurricanes. However, anyone should be able to understand that a warming climate will make wildfires worse.

Details are important, of course. Such as the details that a warming atmosphere leads to greater ability to hold water in vapor form. That change leads to longer stretches between rainfalls, i.e., drought. That change then leads to worse wildfires.

It seems, however, that those causes are not worth mentioning.

The second passage from their statement is worth quoting:

“Sovereignty comes with responsibility, and the responsibility to prevent a foreseeable disaster from crossing into another country’s airspace has not been met.”

Surprising to me, I agree with the sentiment here — but not in the way the authors intended. Carbon emissions cross all country borders and are producing a disaster that was foreseeable.

Perhaps this is phrasing that makes me especially angry, because scientists have been predicting the potential consequences of climate change for decades.

For example, the American Geophysical Union, a premier scientific society of practicing scientists, adopted statements warning about climate change back in the 1990s. The scientific observations and model predictions supporting those statements were published in peer-reviewed journals going back decades before that.

The metaphor I always think about here is a person who has balanced a pencil on its end. If another person accidentally touches the pencil, knocking it over, who is at fault?

The immediate cause was touching the pencil. The more useful statement, however, is that a balanced pencil is unstable and we should expect it to fall over because the world is random.

Humanity has created an unstable environment by emitting carbon dioxide and other climate-changing gases into the atmosphere. That instability plus lightning strikes can cause these wildfires.

The truly useful statement by U.S. politicians is not how many extra Canadian firefighters should be hired. The truly useful statement expects a balanced pencil will tip over. A hotter climate will have large wildfires that will foul our air.

If we expect that, we should aim to limit warming by limiting, then reducing, then eliminating carbon emissions.

The Obama-era strategy was straightforward and practical: All of the above. That means solar power, wind power, nuclear power, electric vehicles, heat pumps and everything else we’ve been hearing about for decades.

As a contrast, consider the Republican national platforms from this century.

In 2000, it described the main international tool for minimizing climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, as against U.S. interests.

In 2004, it strongly opposed the Kyoto Protocol again.

In 2008, it had generally supportive statements that admitted climate change was happening and was our responsibility to address. It did not mention the Kyoto Protocol.

In 2012, it did not discuss any practical efforts on climate change.

In 2016, it also failed to propose any practical efforts.

And again in 2020 and 2024.

I cannot emphasize enough how much these specific politicians do not care about solving these problems. They show us who they are every time they look past climate change solutions and blame someone else for not solving public problems.

Christer Watson of Fort Wayne holds a doctorate in astronomy and writes about the applications of science in everyday life.