HURRICANES BRING OUT THE BLUSTER BUMS: "The climate-change agenda is all about restricting our energy supply to sources most vulnerable to destruction in a crisis.".

• Author: Orient, Jane M.
• Position: POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

MIAMI MAYOR Tomas Regalado and MSNBC's Ali Velshi are looking beyond the suffering that Hurricane Irma has caused--and continues to cause--in Florida. It's "an opportunity" to talk about climate change. "This is something that needs to be addressed. If Washington doesn't want to do it, we will do it by ourselves," said Mayor Regalado. The Mayor is one of a number of state and local politicians, including California Gov. Jerry Brown, who intend to implement local anti-climate change measures despite Pres. Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

The three especially fierce hurricanes--Harvey, Irma. and Maria--are not just natural phenomena, some activists say, but God's (or nature's) judgment for using "fossil fuels" that emit carbon dioxide, thus causing "climate change" (if not "global warming," the previous name for this alleged crisis).

"Is this a harbinger of things to come?" is the question in a featured posting by Physicians for Social Responsibility. These disasters remind us that "we must take urgent action now against climate change." Actions include scaling back our use of fossil fuels and transitioning to "clean, carbon-free energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal." Otherwise, we will experience more frequent, more intense storms, and more "beyond-anything-experienced" flooding.

The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health states: "The 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change concluded that addressing climate change is the greatest public health opportunity of the 21st century, and failure to adequately address it could undo most of the progress in global health over the past century."

In response to such concerns, the first question in the Climate Change IQ Project just launched by Doctors for Disaster Preparedness is: "Would lowering atmospheric [CO.sub.2] prevent or mitigate hurricanes?" The answer clearly is: "No."

Hurricane season has been very quiet for 12 years--until now. Over the past 140 years, meanwhile, the trend in hurricane frequency and intensity has been downward, even if the recent trio is included--even though atmospheric [CO.sub.2] has increased constantly. The worst natural disaster in U.S. history, which killed approximately 12,000 people, was the Galveston hurricane and floods--in 1900.

So, what are the real, urgent needs of people facing these devastating disasters, in the context of the climate activists' agenda?

The millions of people in Florida ordered to...