"Unrelenting, coast-to-coast heat wave scorches America" - USA Today
Republicans deny climate change while Americans bake in heatwaves. A GOP-packed Supreme Court cripples the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from fighting climate changing and let fossil fuel GOP donors pollute more. Follow the money making heat waves more frequent.
Elections matter. You get Senators who care more for their billionaire fossil fuel donors than Americans suffering from heat waves.
Check this real-time map for the heatwaves ravaging the country. Elect Democratic Senators to fight climate change.
Follow the greed behind heat waves
Delay as the New Denial: The Latest Republican Tactic to Block Climate Action
"The party has largely moved beyond denying the existence of climate change but continues to oppose dramatic action to halt it, worried about the short-term economic consequences. One hundred million Americans from Arizona to Boston are under heat emergency warnings, and the drought in the West is nearing Dust Bowl proportions. Britain declared a national emergency as temperatures soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and parts of blistering Europe are ablaze.
But on Capitol Hill this week, Republicans were warning against rash action in response to the burning planet. “I don’t want to be lectured about what we need to do to destroy our economy in the name of climate change,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina." - NYT
"For the modern-day Republican Party, protecting fossil fuels wasn’t a pet issue; it was a religion. The Church of Carbon. And he didn’t have a chance in hell of persuading someone like Barton to join his cause. “It has always been amazing to me that the Republicans as a party have taken the view that climate change – if it even exists – is not caused by man-made pollutants, and it’s not really much of a problem,” Waxman says. “It’s an open hostility to science and evidence and facts that are becoming more and more undeniable.” - Rolling Stone
Supreme Court limits EPA authority to set climate standards for power plants - CNBC
- The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to set standards on climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions for existing power plants.
- The court ruled 6-3 that Congress, not the EPA, has the power to create a broad system of cap-and-trade regulations to limit emissions from existing power plants in a bid to transition away from coal to renewable energy sources.
- Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the case, known as West Virginia v. the EPA. The majority opinion was joined by the court’s other five conservative members.
Follow the greed behind surge in heatwaves
How do you connect political decisions to the impact they have? Let viewers check the facts for themselves and see how their votes can make a difference. This map was designed with ArcGIS Online and uses a live data feed from the National Weather Service containing official weather warnings, watches, and advisory statements for the United States.
- Current heat waves and extreme weather conditions
- Republican Senators and candidates denying climate change
- How to register to vote
- Make sure you have a valid Voter ID
- Volunteer to be a poll monitor to protect fair elections
Climate Change Indicators: Heat Waves
Heat waves are a series of unusually hot days. They are more than just uncomfortable: they can lead to illness and death, particularly among older adults, the very young, and other vulnerable populations. Prolonged exposure to excessive heat can lead to other impacts as well—for example, damaging crops, injuring or killing livestock, and increasing the risk of wildfires. Heat waves can lead to power outages as heavy demands for air conditioning strain the power grid. This indicator examines heat wave trends. (EPA)
- Frequency: the number of heat waves that occur every year.
- Duration: the length of each individual heat wave, in days.
- Season length: the number of days between the first heat wave of the year and the last.
- Intensity: how hot it is during the heat wave.
- Heat waves are occurring more often than they used to in major cities across the United States.
- The average heat wave in major U.S. urban areas has been about four days long.
- The average heat wave season across the 50 cities in this indicator is 47 days longer now.
- Heat waves have become more intense over time.
- 46 metropolitan areas experienced a statistically significant increase in heat wave frequency.
Koch-Funded politicians deny climate change
"Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz turned heads when he introduced a bill on Feb. 3 to “completely abolish” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “The American people are drowning in rules and regulations promulgated by unelected bureaucrats,” Gaetz told fellow GOP lawmakers in an email reported by the Huffington Post “and the Environmental Protection Agency has become an extraordinary offender.”
GOP representatives have raked in campaign cash from some of the biggest corporations peddling fossil fuels, including Koch Industries, Duke Energy, Chevron and ExxonMobil. What’s more, an independent political spending group funded by an oil and gas company stepped in with ad buys to aid in Gaetz’s recent U.S. House race." - EcoWatch
Paid to attack the EPA
"Massie, a U.S. representative since 2012, was first elected with the backing of the Tea Party group FreedomWorks, which heavily opposes environmental regulations and regularly questions whether humans are affecting the climate. In his three congressional campaigns, Massie took in nearly $155,000 from companies working in various parts of the oil, gas and coal industries, including Alpha Natural Resources, Chevron, Duke Energy, Exxon, Halliburton and Koch Industries, as well as from CSX Corporation, a transportation company that operates trains carrying coal, oil, natural gas and frac sand, an essential material used in shale drilling.
Massie has attacked and attempted to weaken the EPA repeatedly. He co-sponsored a 2016 bill to shift how the EPA analyzes greenhouse gas emissions in favor of fossil fuel companies—a bill lobbied for by Marathon Petroleum (which has given him $20,000) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which raises doubt about human-caused climate change). Before that, he co-sponsored a 2015 resolution weakening an EPA rule under the Clean Air Act and a 2014 bill lowering EPA ambient air quality standards. - EcoWatch
Use GIFs to create crisp visual messages
This GIF was created with the free iMovie app and EZGIF. It highlights Republican Senators and candidates in a simple 20 second video which was converted into a GIF.
TakeAway: Follow the fossil fuel greed pushing Republicans to deny climate change.
Deepak
DemLabs
Credit: Thanks to Julia Bayer with the data layer used in the map.
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