Biden says "historic investment" is needed to deal with the climate crisis, as the north-east reels from flash flooding and tornadoes that have killed at least 43 people. The US is facing climate-related destruction across the country and tackling it is "a matter of life and death", the president said. The destruction brought by Hurricane Ida to Louisiana and Mississippi and wildfires in the Western states, was "yet another reminder that these extreme storms in the climate crisis are here".
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, said, "We need to start communicating to people that things will be much worse in literally every situation,"
Many Americans won’t make that connection with extreme weather because most media reporting doesn’t contain the words “climate change”.
Six of the biggest commercial TV networks in the US – ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC and MSNBC – ran 774 stories about Hurricane Ida from 27 to 30 August, an analysis by the watchdog group Media Matters found. Only 34 of those stories, barely 4%, mentioned climate change.
The vast majority of news coverage chooses climate silence, not climate science.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined others in linking the climate emergency to the nation's growing inequality.
"Many of these deaths occurred in basement dwellings, many of which are illegal and growing in number due to the unaffordable housing crisis, but do not meet safety standards required to keep people safe in incidents like flash floods," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "These are working class, immigrant, and low-income people and families."
Once more the Green New Deal is being again being promoted as an answer to this global phenomenon. A lot more than some legislative palliatives is required.
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