Experts believe Democrats climate change claims on Hurricane Ian are unfounded.
Experts believe Democrats climate change claims on Hurricane Ian are unfounded. Fox News Digital consulted with a number of experts, and their consensus was that there isn’t enough data to link climate change to specific natural disasters like Hurricane Ian.
As the media, Democrats, and progressive critics have all continued to blame the hurricane on human-caused global warming, these experts have weighed in. On Wednesday, Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 storm in southwest Florida, knocking out power to over a million people and triggering dire safety warnings from Florida officials.
Gregory Wrightstone, executive director of the climate policy think tank CO2 Coalition, told Fox News Digital, “What they’re trying to do is politicize the agony and suffering of these people to advance their green agenda.” Their ambition to promote renewable energy, however, will have far more negative effects on the national and Florida economies.
Media publications such as the New York Times, AP, Politico, NPR, and Axios have reported over the past few days that climate change is to blame for Hurricane Ian and the quick escalation of the storm. In an article published by Time, the authors claimed that it is “clearly recognized” that global warming contributed to Hurricane Ian’s development.
On Tuesday, Democratic Senator from Minnesota Amy Klobuchar seemed to imply in an interview that Americans should vote for Democrats in order to prevent future catastrophes. Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois tweeted on Thursday that “the rapid storm strengthening we’re seeing with Hurricane Ian will become more common and dangerous” due to climate change.
Also, several liberal commentators and climate activists posted online attributions of the cause of global warming for the hurricane.
Former Democratic Senate candidate and head of the left-wing firm Center for Employment Justice Pam Keith tweeted on Wednesday, “Ian is a climate change hurricane.”
According to Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the progressive think tank Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy, “[Hurricane Ian] is a textbook example of climate change harming people.” “Climate change is not a partisan issue; it’s a scientific fact.”
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, interim director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center Jamie Rhome echoed the study’s findings, refuting host Don Lemon’s claim that Hurricane Ian’s strengthening is related to climate change. If you attribute a single storm to global warming, Rhome said he “would caution against” doing so.
“Trying to blame global warming for Hurricane Ian not only violates scientific evidence — the clear weight of scientific data,” said James Taylor, head of the conservative think tank Heartland Institute, in an interview with Fox News Digital.
And, as Taylor put it, “these hurricanes were happening long before the advent of SUVs and coal-fired power plants.” They were more common and devastating before the advent of coal power plants and SUVs.
He told Fox News Digital that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found “no link” between rising global temperatures and an increase in hurricane activity. “The proof of that was visible this year. Before this huge hurricane, the number of hurricanes had been nearly at a record low.”
