Living in Philadelphia these past several years, I have been able to see how well Republican Governor Chris Christie has responded to a number of extreme weather emergencies during his tenure. Counting a couple hurricanes and a handful of blizzards, including Superstorm Sandy and the current Super Nor'easter, they would be more than a handful for most any state executive.
And for the most part, Christie has managed these weather emergencies quite competently. He and his administration do well to prepare for these storms well in advance. They heed the advice of their forecasters. They are quick to seek help from the federal government when it is clear that the threat exceeds their capabilities. There are not really any catastrophic death tolls as a result of their mismanagement. And for anyone who is paying attention, it is not hard to see why.
They err on the side of caution.
Chris Christie is known for his brusque and confrontational style. Most people outside of the area may not be aware of how he publicly chastised the former mayor of Atlantic City for not properly heeding his advice to evacuate during Hurricane Sandy. Although I have a hard time finding actual transcripts from these events, I distinctly remember how foolish he considered these people, for questioning the forecasts and considering their warnings overly hyperbolic, and basically not planning for the worst.
I understand that sometimes folks think that people overreact in this situation. Let me assure you that we are not overreacting. We need to be ready for this.
The general gist I get from Christie when he talks about preparing for these sorts of disasters: it is better to plan for the worst-case scenario, and if it turns out to be not that bad, we are no worse off, however the consequences are far worse if we don't prepare for the worst and are then caught off guard.
And you know, on these events, I have to say I heartily agree.
He is not alone. Of his Republican Governor brethren, when Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal had to bear the brunt of a storm while caught offguard and, when the threat of a second one soon came around, he was much more prepared. In other words, he learned his lesson. Or, one would hope.
So it makes it all the more frustrating that some of these same people who recognize how to properly address an impending threat, can just as easily ignore quite a similar threat, just because it is politically inconvenient.
Of course, I am referring to climate change.
I am sure Christie is not the only one. Whenever these impending threats are looming, people like Christie are quick to call for caution, for preparing for the worst, and being happy even if we are wrong, because in the end we were prepared to handle whatever came our way. So why do these same people refuse to acknowledge the same mindset for something just as dangerous, if not moreso, such as climate change?
Republicans in Congress recently voted to acknowledge that climate change is real. Yet they refuse to acknowledge that it is caused by humans.
But regardless of whether or not it is caused by humans, it still poses a credible threat, does it not?
Why are we not challenging them to prepare for the worst? Why aren't we asking them why we should trust that they can handle what is coming in the future, if they do nothing to prepare for that possible future?
Climate scientists have been warning us for as long as many of us have been alive, that climate change poses a serious threat, and that we need to take action to address this impending disaster. They get blasted for being hacks or frauds or worse.
Most of these Republicans don't believe the scientists, though. They do not believe the effect, or that the results will be so dire.
But I am sure Chris Christie does not always believe everything his weather advisors tell him. But if they tell him he should prepare for major problems, whether or not believes it, he does prepare in a timely fashion. So why is that so hard to do for climate change?
Meanwhile, we have no problem agreeing with the forecasts of our meteorologists - which we should, because their models are based on sound, fundamental science.
And that's the thing. Much of the science that we use to forecast weather patterns over the next several days, is the same science used to predict what will happen to global weather patterns in the further future. What difference does it make if it is a day from now or a hundred thousand days from now? It's the same science.
Sure, some of you are saying, but even weather models are not perfect. Sometimes they can be completely off, and the weather we get one day will be completely different from what we were told. So how do we convince the public to have just as much faith in predictions years from now?
Well, shouldn't we err on the side of caution, just like we do now for blizzards and hurricanes?
Preparing for the worst does not mean imagining the worst with certainty. This is not to say that we should maintain sandbag dikes around our properties year round and walk about with innertubes around our waists. But with the prediction of climate change, we do have reasonable ideas of what to expect, and when to expect them. We also have reasonable ideas of how we can do things to mitigate and perhaps even prevent the worst of such effects.
The fact is, we do not know what will happen in the future. I have confidence that what scientists tell us is highly likely going to happen. But if you were to ask me if I could know that for sure, with 100% certainty, I would say no. Who could?
But what I do know is, if we are not preparing for the worst, and most importantly, if our leaders are not preparing for the worst, if our actions do not reflect our best available information at any given time, we are violating a grave responsibility we have as a society. The responsibility to competently, at the very least, protect ourselves, and not put our fellow citizens in harms way, or our successors.
And if someone like Chris Christie cannot recognize how foolish it is to ignore the threat of climate change, how is he any better than the Atlantic City mayor or residents he once publicly disgraced?