Climate deniers are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts

Republicans and their cable news allies are still hot and bothered about climate change. A few examples:

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) accused Climate Envoy John Kerry of being a “grifter,” trying to charge taxpayers “a quadrillion dollars to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.” Liberals don’t “really believe in global warming,” Tucker Carlson asserted, because “the entire theory is absurd and they know it.” “It’s, hot, hot, hot, all right,” Laura Ingraham told Fox News viewers. “After all, we’re in the middle of a season called ‘summer.’” Stronger hurricanes are “a fact of life in the Sunshine State,” declared Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “I’ve always rejected the politicization of the weather.”

During a hearing of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-S.C.) claimed that “Every time you have soil or rock or whatever it is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in these oceans, because the bottom is moving up.” Former President Trump, who has frequently called climate change “a hoax,” recently opined that it “may affect us in 300 years.”

Not one Republican in Congress voted for the Biden administration’s bill to combat climate change. The percentage of rank-and-file Republicans who think global warming is caused by human activity has declined over the last two decades. These days, 70 percent of Republicans say climate change is a minor threat or no threat at all.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once declared, “but not to his own facts.”

In that spirit, and in the hope that it will change some opinions, here is a brief summary of facts about climate change and its effect on the lives and livelihoods of all Americans:

2023 is likely to be the hottest year on record, and possibly the hottest in 100,000 years. Virtually all climate scientists agree that human activities (i.e. the release of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere) have warmed the surface of the Earth and ocean basins, and affected extreme weather events. Even if all 196 nations that signed the 2015 Paris Treaty reach their agreed upon fossil fuel emission targets (an unlikely outcome), global temperatures will rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, a seemingly small but extraordinarily consequential increase.

This year’s excessive heat has already resulted in 235,000 emergency room visits and more than 56,000 hospitalizations in the U.S., at a cost of more than $1 billion. The heat has also caused as much as $100 billion in reduced time and productivity on the job, a number that is likely to double by 2030. This summer, the temperature in Phoenix topped 110 degrees for 31 consecutive days, and failed to drop below 90 degrees for 16 consecutive days. Annual deaths attributable to the heat have quadrupled in Phoenix in the last decade.

Although wildfires occur naturally, heat waves and droughts increase their frequency, length and severity. Wildfires accelerate climate change by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The number of wildfires and the acreage they damage have increased 223 percent in the last 40 years.

The price tag of the recent wildfire in Hawaii could reach $16 billion — and the death toll continues to mount. Wildfire smoke, which travels thousands of miles, affects breathing, and can exacerbate asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cardiovascular disease. If trends continue, wildfires will increase 50 percent by the end of the century.

Rising temperatures, early snowpack melt and a longer dry season result in more frequent, severe and longer droughts. The megadrought in the American West, which has lasted for more than two decades, has made the region drier than it has been in more than 1,200 years, causing massive crop losses, water shortages and lower groundwater levels. Moreover, droughts help wildfires spread more easily.

Climate change contributes to floods and droughts, albeit in different parts of the country. Warmer temperatures increase evaporation, put more moisture into the atmosphere and dramatically increase the amount of rain in many storms and hurricanes. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 60 inches of rain and caused an eight-foot storm surge in coastal areas of Texas. As sea levels rise, coastal flooding will increase significantly, perhaps by one foot by 2050, adding to the 4.3 million homes in Florida, California, South Carolina and Texas currently deemed at risk of being swept away.

Some climate deniers, it seems clear, are willfully or invincibly ignorant. These people must not be allowed to prevent the rest of us from addressing a clear, present, extraordinarily well-documented and existential threat to the United States — and to planet Earth.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) of “Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.”