Political Leaders Don’t Warn the Public That Burning Fossil Fuels is Making Climate Change Worse

I don’t write this post to exploit the horrors of the flooding disaster in Texas Hill Country. Drawing attention to the failed attempt by the National Weather Service to warn the public nearest to the Guadalupe River, one of the most flood prone areas in the United States, which might have been undermined by DOGE cuts, doesn’t feel right either. This will be crucial to figure out though. Most readers will also know that these events in Texas, and many other extreme weather occurrences, will be more frequent and be more intense as the atmosphere thickens with the greenhouse gases that occur from the continued burning of fossil fuel. The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (remember the IPCC?) attribution and global hydrological models project a larger fraction of land areas to be affected by an increase in river floods than a decrease in river floods due to increases in these greenhouse gases from 1950 onward. Which is why I want to focus attention on two prominent climate science denialists. Serial “howlers” Governor Greg Abbot and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, many of you probably know, repeatedly mislead the public about the primary role of burning fossil fuels in pushing the earth's climate system into a new dangerous, regime. But also, it would be overly partisan to blame Republicans solely for obfuscating this fact, as lame as their own-the-libs science denial is. Yes, Republican obsequiousness to the fossil fuel industry is well known, but this ignores Democratic leaders who bend the knee to its powerful sway. Democrats do this while saying all the right things, like “climate crisis” and “net-zero emissions by 2045”. Governor Jared Polis, who wants Colorado to lead on climate action “regardless of federal policy”, was able to successfully kill a pioneering bill this spring for a climate and health warning label on gas pumps. Of course there could be political calculus for his action, but this ignores how “warming labels” would be a much needed regulation to fossil fuel consumer markets where the industry has historically deceived the public about the invisible harms that occur when people burn fossil fuel for energy. Soon to be published evidence will show the labels are good policy too. They address the unique circumstances created by people’s economic dependency on these fuels by effectively creating a new social pressure to consider cleaner alternatives to conventional gasoline and diesel. A comprehensive, social norms shift away from fossil fuels which will encompass some behavioral change, will be a key component in Colorado’s (and Hawaii’s) effort to decarbonize transportation and reduce the public health effects from transportation-related ozone. 

Affecting “caring concern” for the climate – Governor Polis fully embraces climate science – or wanting to look like an omniscient cowboy up against established science – you guessed it, Abbot and Cruz largely reject it – it turns out are both great smoke screens. In the case of Governor Polis’ actions to keep a climate-health warning label off gasoline, scholars call this implicatory denial of climate change. Saying things like “climate change is real” while quietly bumping off meaningful climate policy, lives quite comfortably in progressive circles that effectively preserve the status quo. These “politics of delay” are mainstream and obviously, distract from climate exigence. They were operating in Colorado, and encouraged audiences to ignore the hidden cost consumers incur when they consume gas which, you guessed it again, allows political leaders to do what’s best for the oil and gas industry. It should not be a surprise that Governor Abbot and Senator Cruz would do this. The industry is worth $751 Billion to the Texas economy. But it’s a little more surprising the sway Colorado’s fossil fuel industry had, worth only around $21 billion in comparison, in influencing the warming label bill. 

To be clear, flooding events in Kerr County Texas are not unprecedented. As noted by the IPCC, flooding events like this are due to complex hydrological processes. Their destructiveness is not solely caused by increases in greenhouse gases. Human water management, like building on known flood plains, is a key aspect. In the short term, investigations as to why these building permits were issued will need to be part of seeking compensatory justice for the victims. But my point is this: Political leaders who use their helm to mislead the public about the known link between continued fossil fuel burning and worsening climatic events I’ll go ahead and say it, are immoral. And fully acknowledging the existence of fossil fuel-driven climate change while delaying real policy action to address it, is just another form of climate denial.

Pope Leo recently said that political leaders who engage in climate denial should “repent”. Red and blue state leaders who obfuscate this urgency use their power to help the fossil fuel industry and not the people. Transitioning to clean energy is going to be hard, but political leaders who deny climate change abandon their moral obligation that offers a clear vision for the future. Political leaders who deny climate change are shortsighted, greedy, and avaricious. When they ignore the pollution costs created by oil and gas operations, this is economically stupid. Maybe what the Pope is saying is that these politicians are sinners? Former UN High Commissioner Mary Robinson takes it further. She called climate denial (by political leaders) “malign and evil” because it denies the human rights of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Which makes it…felonious? When the Pope says they should repent, he says they should feel remorse. They should commit to reform of their destructive behavior not unlike what we ask of criminals. Great political leadership in an unfolding climate emergency would commit to continuous learning and development of a zero emissions economy. They would warn the public that continued burning of fossil fuel is making things like flooding events worse. The public wants a leader like that too. 

~ JAMES BROOKS, Founder, Think Beyond the Pump