Hurricane Beryl wants a word with Texas climate deniers
By Mark Gongloff / Bloomberg Opinion
Pop quiz time: Which U.S. state is the most vulnerable to climate-fueled weather disasters and soaring home-insurance costs but is also growing rapidly and has a government hostile to the very concept of climate change? The most obvious answer is Florida, with its hurricanes and floods and anti-woke, stunt-loving governor. The correct answer, however, is Texas.
No other state has suffered more climate-related damage over the past several decades than the Lone Star State; not even Florida, California or Louisiana. Home-insurance costs rose more in Texas than in any other state last year and over the past five years, according to S&P Global. And though Gov. Ron DeSantis has outlawed the mention of climate change in Florida, Texas’ aggressive pro-global-warming policies have real teeth and will continue to do real harm. Especially to Texas.
On Monday, the state was slammed by the third incarnation of Hurricane Beryl, which had been re-re-fueled by bathtub-warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico after wreaking havoc on several Caribbean islands, Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. It made landfall south of Houston as a Category 1 hurricane, bringing high winds, a storm surge and heavy rainfall and leaving millions without power in sweltering heat. As it churns its way through the middle of the country, Beryl will raise the threat of flooding and tornadoes all the way to the Great Lakes.
Climate change may not have caused Hurricane Beryl, but it certainly made it more powerful and destructive. It was the earliest Atlantic hurricane to reach Category 5 in history and intensified rapidly three times, drawing strength from freakishly warm ocean water and favorable atmospheric conditions created by a growing La Niña phenomenon in the Pacific.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-hurricane-beryl-wants-a-word-with-texas-climate-deniers/