A new EPA document asks communities to prepare for the impacts of climate change

The Environmental Protection Agency released a 150-page document last week with a clear message to deal with the aftermath of natural disasters across the country: Start planning for the fact that climate change will worsen these disasters.

The language, included in tips on how to deal with debris left after floods, hurricanes and forest fires, is at odds with the rhetoric of EPA's own leader, Andrew Wheeler. Last month, Wheeler said in an interview with CBS that "most climate change threats take place in 50 to 75 years."

Several recent studies have shown how climate change is already affecting the United States and the world. In the western United States, for example, regional temperatures have risen nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s and snowmelt occurs a month earlier in some areas, prolonging the fire season. three months and multiplying by five the number of large fires. Another scientific article, co-authored by EPA researchers, revealed that unless the United States reduces their carbon emissions, climate change will likely cost the United States hundreds of thousands of dollars. billions of dollars a year from here to 2100.

The divergence between Wheeler and his own agency offers the latest example of the often contradictory way in which federal climate policy has evolved under President Trump. While the White House was seeking to downplay or ignore climatology, government experts continued to ring the alarm.

The President announced his intention to withdraw the nation from a key international climate agreement. However, last fall, 13 agencies released a report concluding that "the evidence of climate change caused by humans is overwhelming and continues to grow, as the impacts of climate change intensify in Canada. across the country and that climate-related threats to the physical, social and economic well-being of Americans are increasing. "

The White House has repeatedly sought to challenge the broad scientific consensus that human activities are at the root of climate change and plans to create a federal advisory committee to review these findings. But while the National Security Council is still pursuing the task force's proposal, it has encountered resistance from army and intelligence officials, as well as from the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the United States. White House.

Even some of the administration's symbolic efforts to change the government's message on the climate have been stifled. In the summer of 2017, key EPA officials planned to change references to climate change in the agency's official museum and possibly expose a piece of coal. Review plans have stagnated and are not expected to materialize, according to two individuals who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Nevertheless, Trump officials often echo references to climate change in key documents.

The White House Bureau of Information and Regulation documents released April 24 in the Office of the Agency for the Protection of Land and Emergencies attempted to minimize the impact of climate change on the intensity of natural disasters. But these efforts, reported for the first time by E & E News, have not entirely removed these references.

The document published Wednesday in the Federal Register repeatedly makes the link between climate change and floods, forest fires and more severe storms.

Although the White House has retained a sentence attributing extreme weather events to climate change, the document still refers to "climate change" and "a changing climate" 22 times.

"According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive report on the impacts of climate change on the United States, climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of some natural disasters," the report says. "The amount of debris generated by natural disasters and the costs to manage them are likely to increase."

The guidelines address "communities at increased risk of natural disasters related to climate change," says the document, which includes a section entitled "Integrating climate change adaptation into debris management planning". ".

When asked about the document Friday, the EPA declined to comment.

"These EPA guidelines make it clear to the public that you need to start now to deal with disasters that are aggravated by climate change and will be even more so," said Amit Narang, defender of the group's regulatory policy. Public Citizen. "It's quite disturbing for me to see the EPA official say exactly the opposite."

To a certain extent, the new document reflects the progress made by scientists who attribute extreme events to climate change since the publication in 2004 of a landmark analysis analyzing a deadly heat wave in Europe the year before.

Climate.gov, the US government's main website on climate change, provides a detailed explanation of how science has evolved in recent years, including the contribution of federal researchers to the field.

"Scientists are increasingly able to distinguish evidence of human-induced climate change from natural variability," explained the government's explanator.

But research on the attribution of extreme events is not limited to the government. Since 2011, the American Meteorological Society has compiled an annual assessment of how human-caused climate change has likely affected the strength and frequency of extreme events such as record heat waves, droughts and forest fires.

The group said that of the more than 130 peer-reviewed studies in annual reviews, about 65% have identified fingerprints of climate change during extreme weather events, while about 35% have not found any clear link.

"The science has really developed over the last decade, especially around the influence of global warming on extreme events," said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor and senior fellow at the university. from Stanford, who studies the climate system.

For starters, he said, researchers are constantly collecting more data and studying more weather events, so that sightings have grown over time. The computing power and modeling capabilities have improved. And there has also been an "explosion of research" on the subject, as scientists have developed frameworks to better assess the role of climate change in specific events.

The result, he said, is a growing body of research that details how man-made climate change is contributing to record heat, more intense storms, more severe floods, and more severe weather. 39, other events.

"It is clear from several data sources that the global warming already underway is already affecting us," said Diffenbaugh.

At the beginning of the year, at Wheeler's confirmation hearing, Democrats repeatedly tried to make Wheeler, who had lobbied for the fossil fuel industry in the past, understand his exact position in climate change and the risks it poses.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Asked Wheeler if he agreed with Trump's comment that climate change equates to a Chinese "hoax". After being squeezed, the interim administrator replied: "I have not used the word" hoax "myself."

Sanders then asked Wheeler that he accepted the consensus of most scientists that climate change is one of the most serious problems facing the country. "I would not call it the biggest crisis, no, sir," he replied. "I would call it a huge problem that needs to be addressed globally."