Response to Shahbaz: Relax, we have time to build climate solutions

Chill out, y’all. We’re going to be fine. 

The U.S. is leading the way in clean energy investment, flood mitigation and preventative infrastructure. Yet last week, Opinions Editor Daniyal Shahbaz wrote that, “We are vastly unprepared for the climate disasters to come.” 

As a country, we all need to take a collective deep breath. Climate doomerism is not healthy, helpful or honest.

To be clear: this isn’t climate denial. Earth’s average temperature has risen about 1.3°C since 1850 and sea levels have risen eight to nine inches since 1880.

These are real problems. But we shouldn’t blow them out of proportion.

Politicians like to describe climate change as a “life or death” issue. This is a serious mistake. At current global warming rates, it would take hundreds of years for direct heat mortality to reach catastrophic levels. 

We have time to build solutions. 

The first step to building a solution is identifying the problem. Shahbaz does this excellently. 

“The tragic flash floods in Nepal that took the lives of more than a thousand people are not an anomaly,” he writes. “They are the consequences of an uninterrupted and unaddressed pattern of climate mismanagement across the globe.” 

He’s right about the mismanagement. Much of the devastation stemmed from recent urbanization — increased cement cover — without sufficient drainage. That isn’t to say global warming didn’t play a part, but we need to be honest about the primary failure: bad planning. 

Nepal aside, there are many other serious problems associated with global warming — droughts, rising sea levels, famines and malaria outbreaks. For the sake of this article, let’s focus on the two most obvious: rising sea levels and increased flooding. 

While his description of “vastly unprepared” goes too far, Shahbaz correctly notes there is a deficiency in infrastructure. But why? The answer might shock you: environmental legislation itself. 

The National Environmental Policy Act forces major infrastructure projects through years of legal hoops before breaking ground. An Environmental Impact Statement takes four and a half years to draft, and public challenges can tie agencies up in court for even longer. These delays, averaging five to ten years, sometimes decades, often inflate prices by 50% to 100%, scaring off investors and municipalities.

Ironically, legislation intended to protect the environment from humans prevents us from protecting ourselves from the environment. 

Despite these delays, Americans are still building at breakneck speed.

Cities are laying porous asphalt and subterranean basins to allow better drainage. Some sewer systems now have sensors that automatically open or close floodgates and divert water flow to empty reservoirs. 

Florida is adding “living shorelines” alongside structural floodwalls to break wave energy before it hits urban centers. Texas is building a massive $30 billion system to protect against hurricanes. New York City is elevating waterfront parks, burying floodwalls, and installing deployable flip-up floodgates across Lower Manhattan. 

Similar projects are taking place in New Orleans, Norfolk, Virginia and all across the country. 

While megaprojects like this take time, the U.S. coastline is seeing more active flood mitigation than at any point since the mid-20th century. “Vastly unprepared” seems to miss the mark. 

But we’re not just fixing the symptoms; we’re also attacking the disease — greenhouse gas emissions. 

Globally, $2.2 trillion go to renewables, nuclear, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification — twice as much as the $1.1 trillion going to oil, natural gas and coal.

Tech giants like Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are making unprecedented clean energy deals and helping fund the revival of nuclear power. Even oil and gas companies are investing billions of dollars in green initiatives.

U.S. emissions are already 18% below 2005 levels and 2026 promises to be a record year for clean energy generation. 

Is America perfect? No. Of course not. There are serious problems that still need to be remedied. But the way to continue this trend is not through strict EPA regulations — we need to unleash American visionaries. 

Here’s the deal: investing in green energy is a huge risk. It takes a lot of capital up front and doesn’t allow much margin for error. Adding an EPA emissions cap will drive up energy prices and make the process more costly. 

Instead, we need to remove regulatory barriers and let American entrepreneurs do their thing. 

Erase useless paperwork. Eliminate red tape. Encourage public-private partnerships. Empower Americans to do what we do best — innovate. 

That’s how we avoid these so-called “disasters” — not by climate doomerism, but by creative development.

Environmental alarmism will not solve climate change — common sense solutions will. 

One final thought: Shahbaz writes of a “lack of effort” in the fight against climate change. He finds this failure “baffling.” 

What’s baffling is believing panic, red tape, regulation and doomerism will build a better future than American innovation.