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hurricane helene
Climate Crisis Made Hurricane Milton 'Wetter, Windier, and More Destructive'
World Weather Attribution found that "Milton's rainfall was made 10-50% more intense and about twice as likely due to climate change, while wind speeds were around 10% stronger."
Oct 11, 2024
With rescue and cleanup efforts underway in Florida following back-to-back disasters wrought by hurricanes Helene and Milton, scientists on Friday released an analysis highlighting how the latter storm was "wetter, windier, and more destructive because of climate change" driven by fossil fuels.
Hurricane categories are based on wind speed, and scientists have connected quick jumps in ratings to the climate emergency. Milton rapidly intensified to Category 5, the highest on the scale, while in the Gulf of Mexico but made landfall late Wednesday as a Category 3 storm—less than two weeks after Category 4 Helene hit Florida and then left a trail of destruction across the Southeast.
Based on modeling, "climate change was responsible for an increase of about 40% in the number of storms of this intensity, and equivalently that the maximum wind speeds of similar storms are now about 5 m/s (around 10%) stronger than in a world without climate change," World Weather Attribution (WWA) said Friday. "In other words, without climate change Milton would have made landfall as a Category 2 instead of a Category 3 storm."
WWA also detailed how the warming climate is connected to the water that Milton left in its wake. As the group said: "In 3 out of the 4 analyzed datasets we find that heavy one-day rainfall events such as the one associated with Milton are 20-30% more intense and about twice as likely in today's climate, that is 1.3°C warmer than it would have been without human-induced climate change. The fourth dataset shows much larger changes."
"These results are based on observational data and do not include climate models and are thus higher than the overarching attribution statement given for Hurricane Helene, where we combined observations and climate models. Nevertheless the results are compatible with those obtained for other hurricanes in the area that have been studied in the scientific literature," WWA continued. "Despite using different temporal and geographical event definitions, as well as different observational datasets and climate models, all these studies show a similar increase in intensity of between 10% and 50% and about a doubling in likelihood. We are therefore confident that such changes in heavy rainfall are attributable to human-caused climate change."
Both storms have generated fresh calls to "make polluters pay" for the damage and deaths caused by extreme weather exacerbated by fossil fuels. There are ongoing state-level lawsuits against Big Oil and recent demands for prosecutors to consider bringing criminal charges against companies, using attribution science to make their cases.
"This study has confirmed what should already be abundantly clear: Climate change is supercharging storms, and burning fossil fuels is to blame," Ian Duff, head of Greenpeace International's Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign, toldReuters about the WWA findings out Friday. "Millions of people across Florida—many of whom lack insurance—now face astronomical costs to rebuild shattered homes and communities."
Milton killed at least 16 people—on top of the over 230 deaths tied to Helene—and could cause up to $50 billion in insured losses for property owners in Florida alone, Fitch Ratings said Thursday. As of early Friday, over 2 million state residents still lacked power, according toCBS News.
While Milton barreled toward Florida on Wednesday, WWA published a report detailing how climate change was a "key driver of catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Helene that devastated both coastal and inland communities."
That followed a Monday analysis from the research organization Climate Central showing that high sea-surface temperatures that fuled Milton's rapid intensification were made 400-800 times more likely by the climate crisis.
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed to both of those studies on social media Friday, in a series of posts promoting his appearance on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes" earlier this week.
During Khanna's MSNBC appearance, he pointed out how Democrats on Capitol Hill have fought for more funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which responds to disasters like Milton and Helene, while Republicans have opposed it.
Speaking to reporters last week, before Milton made landfall, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that FEMA is urgently in need of more money for this hurricane season, which lasts until November.
"We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting," Mayorkas said in anticipation of Milton. "FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season."
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Helene and Milton Prove It's Time to Make Polluters Pay for Climate Disasters
Recent polling shows that 70% of US voters support making oil and gas companies pay their fair share for these fossil fuel-driven catastrophes. What are we waiting for?
Oct 10, 2024
“There would be much more violent weather – more storms, more droughts, more deluges.”
That prophecy isn’t from the Book of Revelation, but from a confidential 1989 Shell Oil memo the company commissioned to better understand what global warming could mean for their business in the decades to come.
Today, the sentence reads like a daily weather report. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, a “deluge” that wiped out entire towns and sent homes and semi-trucks spiraling down rivers of mud, and now Hurricane Milton, one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded. In Nepal, extreme flooding there has claimed over more than 200 lives and left parts of the capitol underwater. Meanwhile, the Amazon is facing its “worst drought on record,” further endangering what scientists have referred to as the “lungs of the world.”
“Civilisation could prove a fragile thing,” wrote the authors of the 1989 Shell memo. Indeed. As we’ve seen over the last few months, even supposed climate havens, like Asheville, NC, have been undone by extreme weather. We’ve entered an age where our civilization, no matter where we live, will likely be in need of constant upkeep and repair in the face of ever worsening climate disasters. Rebuilding our communities, and strengthening them for the challenges ahead, will be an ongoing struggle for generations to come.
For more than 70 years the fossil fuel industry has continued to rake in profits without paying a single dollar for the damage they knew their product was causing to our climate and communities.
Which raises the question: how are we going to pay for all of this? Early estimates put the damage of Hurricane Helene at over $200 billion and Hurricane Milton at $175 billion, astronomical figures that still can’t begin to calculate the cost of the lives lost and communities upended. That’s on top of the more than $150 billion a year the US government estimates Americans are already paying for extreme weather events. And that’s a low end estimate. According to a study released earlier this year in Nature concluded that the cost of climate damages to the global economy could reach $38 trillion a year by 2050.
Right now, those costs are coming out of one place in particular: our pockets. Even if your home hasn’t been washed away by a flood, you’re likely paying more for your home insurance due to others that have. Even if your farm hasn’t been wrecked by drought, you’re now paying more for your groceries at the supermarket. The dollars your town had set aside for a new school? They’re now being spent to rebuild roads or repair a bridge that got wiped out by yet another “100-year” flood.
Faced with these ever mounting costs, some local leaders are turning to a different solution: making polluters pay their fair share for the damage they’ve done. After all, that 1989 Shell memo isn’t the only example that fossil fuel companies knew exactly the consequences of the ongoing use of their product. As early as the 1950s, oil and gas companies knew about the dangers of global warming, but instead of warning the public and moving to clean energy, they went on to spread lies and disinformation to protect their profits.
Put another way, for more than 70 years the fossil fuel industry has continued to rake in profits without paying a single dollar for the damage they knew their product was causing to our climate and communities. Instead, they’ve very intentionally “externalized” those costs onto the rest of us, not only in the form of climate impacts, but in terms of our health, local environments, and more.
Now the bill is coming due. This May, Vermont became the first state in the country to pass a Climate Superfund Act that will make oil and gas companies pay into a fund that can be used for climate adaptation and disaster response. Five other states are debating similar legislation, including in New York, where legislators passed a climate superfund bill in June and are now waiting on Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature (last week, activists delivered more than 127,000 signatures to the Governor’s office demanding she stop dragging her feet and sign the bill into law). In September, Senator Van Hollen and Representative Jerry Nadler introduced a federal Climate Superfund bill that would collect $1 trillion from oil and gas companies to be used for relief and resiliency efforts nationwide.
The push for state and federal climate superfund bills is running in parallel to the now dozens of city, state, county, and Tribal governments who have filed lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry for climate lies and damages. These lawsuits could recoup even more money from oil and gas companies for damages, as well as uncover yet more evidence of their ongoing fraud and deception. In addition to these civil cases, some experts and attorneys are now proposing bringing criminal charges against oil companies for the “wrongful deaths” associated with extreme weather events (expect to hear more about climate homicide in the months ahead).
The devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and similar climate disasters around the world, demands more of a response than the “thoughts and prayers” offered by politicians still in the pocket of Big Oil. Recent polling shows that 70% of US voters support making oil and gas companies pay their fair share for climate damages. It’s time for our leaders to answer that call and make polluters pay.
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Climate Advocates Demand Hurricane Town Hall With Harris and Trump
"The climate crisis is here, it's caused by Big Oil, and the American people deserve to know what our future president will do to keep us safe and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its crimes against humanity."
Oct 10, 2024
As families mourned the deaths of hundreds of people from Hurricane Helene and Floridians began to take stock of the damage done by Hurricane Milton on Thursday, climate advocates called on major news networks to hold a town hall focused on the growing threat of extreme weather—and demand answers from the two major presidential candidates regarding what they plan to do about it.
Campaigners with the Sunrise Movement in Florida and North Carolina said CNN, ABC, NBC, or CBS should host a "Hurricane Town Hall" with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump in the latter state before early voting starts there on October 17.
Manu Ivan, an 18-year-old Sunrise member from Orlando, Florida, noted that—as his group demanded—in the vice presidential debate earlier this month, CBS moderators asked Republican candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Democratic contender Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota how they would confront the climate emergency.
"We deserve the opportunity to hear from Harris and Trump about what they will do to take on Big Oil and fight for people like me who are scared about what our state will look like when I'm older," said Ivan.
Sunrise said the town hall would present an opportunity for questions about Trump's promise to oil executives earlier this year that he would swiftly unravel climate progress made by President Joe Biden and expand drilling if the industry donated $1 billion to his campaign.
Advocates also have concerns about Project 2025's proposal to dismantle the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service.
"Americans deserve to know the truth: Donald Trump sold out Asheville, North Carolina and plans to sell out the rest of us for his own political gain," said the group, referring to the city that faced devastating flooding from Hurricane Helene.
The group said the town hall would also allow media networks to "set the record straight on disaster response and fact-check Donald Trump's dangerous lies about the Biden-Harris disaster response," after the Republican nominee spread baseless claims that Harris spent Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding on housing for undocumented immigrants and that Biden ignored Republican-controlled states' calls for help.
"Media networks need to do their jobs and host a hurricane town hall," said Shiva Rajbhandari, a 20-year-old North Carolina student. "In just the last two weeks, millions of people have been affected and thousands have lost their homes, loved ones, and livelihoods. I'm sick of seeing death count headlines and pretending like this is just an act of God. The climate crisis is here, it's caused by Big Oil, and the American people deserve to know what our future president will do to keep us safe and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its crimes against humanity."
Climate campaigners have expressed doubt that Harris would be a "climate president," following her promises at the presidential debate in September that she would allow fracking to continue and her comments boasting about the country's "largest increase in domestic oil production in history."
But advocates have said the prospect of pushing a Harris administration to act on the clear evidence of the climate emergency is preferable to pushing Trump and Vance, who have called the climate crisis a "hoax" and "weird science."
The Sunrise Movement on Thursday circulated an open letter to its supporters asking networks to host a hurricane town hall, to allow "Vice President Harris and former President Trump to explain to the American people what they will do to stop the climate crisis."
"Without bold climate action from the federal government, all of our communities risk being wiped away," the letter reads. "Our leaders must answer to those who have lost everything."
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