Floods. Droughts. Wildfires while Republican Senators deny climate change and pack the Supreme Court to cripple the EPA. What gives? Follow the money.
How does the Koch empire prevent the EPA from regulating its pollution that causes climate change? Why are GOP Senators so adamantly opposed to fighting climate change while their voters have their houses flooded, farms suffer from drought and have to breathe toxic air? What happens when a politicized Supreme Court is beholden to the groups that got them nominated?
Follow along with this StoryMap to see how climate change is devastating Missouri, Utah, Florida and Wisconsin while their Senators block measures to fight climate change.
Follow the money blocking Climate Change action
Record breaking floods in St. Louis
Thousands of people lost power and at least one person died after downpours in St. Louis broke the record for the most rainfall ever recorded in a single day in the city. All-time record-breaking rainfall brings flash flooding to St. Louis. Last week, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson declared a drought alert for dozens of counties in the state. Meteorologists say because the heavy rain was so concentrated in the metro region many of those counties are still dealing with severe drought. - STL Public Radio
A record rainfall Tuesday across the St. Louis metro led to flash flooding, road closures and multiple reports of submerged vehicles. Firefighters in the city were scrambling before sunrise Tuesday, putting small boats in the water to try to check vehicles to make sure no one is inside. "We're being overrun here," St. Louis fire Capt. Garon Mosby said as he closed out a video on Twitter, urging people to avoid standing water. - TulsaWorld
Why is DHS Focusing on Woke Climate Agenda? - Hawley
I write with concern over the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement to create a new Climate Change Professionals Program. Unfortunately, instead of focusing on the crisis at the southern border, you are prioritizing the creation of woke partisan government programs.
Salt Lake dries up creating toxic dust
Great Salt Lake dry-up causing dangerous climate ripple effect, ecologists say. The Great Salt Lake has lost two-thirds of its size due to rising temperatures and causing a dangerous ecological ripple effect throughout Utah. The dry-up is already affecting Utah's fauna, flora and human populations, and the problem is only going to get worse without outside help. - ABC
Solution to climate change 'is to fall in love, get married and have some kids' - Mike Lee
"The solution to climate change is not this un-serious resolution that we're considering this week in the Senate, but rather the serious business of human flourishing," Lee said. "The solution to so many of our problems, at all times and in all places, is to fall in love, get married and have some kids." - CNN
Climate change devastates Florida
Climate change has already changed places like Florida permanently and irreversibly — affecting coral reefs, leading to higher property values and increasing inequality for vulnerable populations in the state, according to a new global report from the world’s top scientists. Climate change has already changed places like Florida permanently and irreversibly — affecting coral reefs, leading to higher property values and increasing inequality for vulnerable populations in the state, according to a new global report from the world’s top scientists. - WUSF
Rubio says we can't do anything
“I don’t agree with the notion that somehow there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate,” said Rubio
Wisconsin devastated
Wisconsin is already 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, on average, than it was in the early twentieth century. And if humans don’t drastically curb our use of fossil fuels, by the end of the twenty-first century, the state could see its “hottest years being about 11 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the hottest year in the historical record.”
That’s mind-boggling because even just a few degrees disrupt our lives. Wisconsin’s projected temperature rise puts it in truly uncharted territory. Rising temperatures like this have big consequences, but perhaps none is more important than the impact on human health. That’s because very high heat is extremely dangerous for the human body, especially when it’s combined with spikes in humidity. Together, humidity and heat create the heat index, a measure of how hot it feels to the human body.
“Under the current trajectory, by 2050 Wisconsin could see two weeks per year of dangerous heat — with heat indexes above 100 degrees”, said the Union of Concerned Scientists (as reported by Wisconsin State Journal). - Climate Reality Project
Climate change is BULLSH*T - Ron Johnson
“I don’t know about you guys, but I think climate change is — as Lord Monckton said — bullshit,” Johnson said, according to CNN’s KFILE , which reported the Republican did not utter the expletive but mouthed it instead. - The Hill
Follow the money funding GOP climate change denial
Koch dark-money network spends millions to undermine Democrats’ effort to protect the climate
"Koch-aligned groups are together spending millions of dollars on advertising, targeting moderate Democratic lawmakers, and pushing their influence in the halls of Congress to whittle down or outright kill the sweeping policy package, which would represent the largest expansion of the social safety net in the past 50 years and the biggest step toward addressing climate change in U.S. history.
“Fighting the reconciliation bill is a top priority for Charles Koch’s surrogates,” says Connor Gibson, founder of the corporate watchdog organization Grassrootbeer Investigations, who has spent years tracking Koch influence in the United States. “This is a viable threat for his network, and we can see that all the tentacles of the Kochtopus are out in full force trying to stop it from passing.” - Rolling Stone
GOP-packed Supreme Court cripples the EPA to stop it regulating oil polluting tycoons funding Republicans.
Follow the money. Oil tycoons fund the GOP to pack the Supreme Court with justices. They cripple the EPA so tycoons can pollute even more. Republicans rewarded with more donations. The public suffers from pollution, wildfires and droughts from the Global warming caused by pollution.
TakeAway: Elections matter. Vote to fix a rigged system where fossil fuel billionaires get richer while climate change ruins the planet.
Deepak
DemLabs
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