FORMER Craven resident Graham Jagger has been living in the United States for three years; here  in his letter from America, he discusses climate change and how it is viewed in the US. 

'CLIMATE change' to many Americans, means nothing more than the difference between the weather yesterday and the weather today.

If you try to have a sensible and rational conversation with someone about this subject, you very quickly find out what their political allegiance is and how they view the issue of “global warming” and what might be the cause of that.

It will come as no secret and no surprise that those who think these issues either don’t exist in the first place or nothing to bother about are particularly from the far right of the political spectrum.

They tend to love their gas guzzling cars and hate the concept of ever having an electric car in the future. They do not believe in solar and wind power generation and think that the US should drill everywhere for oil so that they can have cheap gas/petrol. I may have oversimplified their views and opinions there but I’m sure you get the picture.

Just recently Hurricane Beryl which was the strongest Atlantic hurricane in June and July ever on record here and has done an incredible amount of damage from the Caribbean islands, particularly Jamaica and the Windward Islands and through Texas, up through the centre of the US and still after two weeks is having an effect in the north of the country going into Canada.

Seeing the damage it did to several Caribbean islands was of concern and meant that wherever it went it was going to cause a lot of damage and loss of life.

The Yucatan peninsular of Mexico got it next, just south of Cancun in an area that I stopped off at on my journey to the US in 2020. Then it crossed the Gulf of Mexico and hit Texas hard, particularly the city of Houston where there is still a week later over 1 million homes without electricity at a time when excessive heat advisories are in place every day. Imagine having no air conditioning when the outside temperature is over 100F (38C) each day.

A small number of people have already died from heatstroke in Texas. Yet you raise the question of what’s causing this to happen and all you hear is “it’s summer and always like this” which as far as records is concerned is untrue.

After Texas, Hurricane Beryl, which was a category 5 storm with in excess of 100mph winds, travelled up through the middle of the country and brought flooding to huge parts of the central belt where much of the grain production in the US takes place. Enormous parts of those States were and still are underwater with crops devastated which will no doubt lead to food price increases in due course. Now it sits in the northern States around the Great Lakes area and is still causing mayhem thanks to intense storms and winds over 70mph wherever it touches.

By now, the effects of Hurricane Beryl have been felt in the US for over 10 days now with more days to come. “Record breaking” is a phrase used in every reference to this hurricane. Where I am in metro Atlanta, Georgia just above Florida, we haven’t felt the effects of Beryl, but we’ve had temperatures over 90 degrees F for every day but two over the last four weeks and there’s no end in sight for this.

The two days that the temperature wasn’t over 90F it was either 88F or 89F, not much of a relief. But listening to the meteorologists what not only here but the whole of the country is experiencing is in record territory.

Which brings me back to the climate change and global warming deniers and their rejection of any thought that we the people just might have some responsibility for what we are now experiencing. They just don’t get it and call it a hoax from the liberal left. Hence my earlier reference to the politics of those who refuse to accept there’s a problem with the climate and those who do believe that how we have lived our lives over many years has been a contributing factor in what we are experiencing now.

As I’m sure you will know we are heading towards a Presidential election here on 5th November this year. Former President Trump, a Republican, if elected, plans to stop all of the current plans and policies related to protecting the environment and in particular stopping anything to do with electric vehicles in favour of gas/petrol powered cars and trucks, stop any more solar or windfarms and remove regulations that are in place to protect the environment even to the point of scrapping the Environmental Protection Agency in its entirety.

In addition, despite the US producing more crude oil than it ever has done he will grant permits to drill for oil to anyone who wants one and in currently protected areas such as Federally controlled protected land the Alaskan wilderness. Deregulation and the uncontrolled free market economy lays ahead if he wins the election, that’s for sure and with that comes all those things that have a detrimental effect on our environment.

On the other hand, President Biden and the Democrats are strong supporters of all things environmental. The polar opposite to Trump and the Republicans. Donald Trump when he was President pulled out of The Paris Agreement in 2020 which is an international treaty on climate change which was originally adopted in 2015 by 196 parties of United Nations Framework on Climate Change.

When Biden was elected President, the US rejoined the treaty in 2021. This makes it abundantly clear where things stand on the climate in respect of the two political parties.

This goes a long way to explaining just why it is impossible to talk with some people here about global warming and climate change. If the leader of the party says “it’s a hoax” then that seals the deal for them. I’ve tried hard with some to get my point across but to no real effect. Meanwhile the country suffers the effect of this latest hurricane and no doubt with more to come. The height of the hurricane season is September 10 so a long way from now.