Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question
“To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced,” Mr. Pruitt
said to CNN in an interview ahead of Hurricane Irma, echoing similar sentiments he made when Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas two weeks earlier.
But Leonard Berry, the former director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Florida Atlantic University who is riding out Hurricane Irma in his home in
Boca Raton, Fla., said policy makers have an obligation to talk about it if they hope to protect citizens from increasingly powerful storms going forward.
I’m not sure what’s insensitive about that,” said Dr. Kirtman, who evacuated from Florida on Wednesday.
“You spend an awful lot of effort word-searching your document for the words ‘climate’ and ‘change.’ It’s silliness.”
That is one reason many scientists maintain it is critical to use the megaphone
that the dual devastation of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma has provided.
Ben Kirtman, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine
and Atmospheric Science, said he believes failing to discuss climate change hurts Florida and the entire country.
“To use time and effort to address it at this point is very, very insensitive to this people in Florida,” he added.