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Critics are responding to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has attributed latest vital climate occasions and transportation crises to local weather change, no less than partly.
On Sunday, Buttigieg was featured on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” the place he claimed the results of local weather change are in charge for latest incidents of extreme turbulence on airplanes and excessive climate.
Anchor Margaret Brennan requested Buttigieg about strains on the nationwide transportation system when dangerous climate compounds a heavy journey weekend like Memorial Day and what he thinks of NOAA’s newest outlook predicting a extra extreme hurricane season this 12 months.
“The fact is, the results of local weather change are already upon us when it comes to our transportation,” Buttigieg replied.
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“We have seen that within the type of all the pieces from warmth waves that should not statistically even be doable threatening to soften the cables of transit methods within the Pacific Northwest to … hurricane seasons turning into increasingly excessive and indications that turbulence is up by about 15%.
“Meaning assessing something and all the pieces that we are able to do about it.”
In response, GOP lawmakers and a few local weather analysts rejected Buttigieg’s invocation of local weather change, with one legislator claiming climate and public transit methods are being politicized.
“Clearly, Secretary Buttigieg is just not critical about addressing our quite a few transportation challenges. He’s enjoying id politics to the detriment of the American folks,” stated Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., a member of the Home Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
“Buttigieg’s newest feedback are contradicted by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board and simply one other instance of how out of contact he’s with hardworking Individuals.”
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Power analyst Alex Epstein, a former Cato Institute scholar and the creator of “Fossil Future,” advised Fox Information Digital the secretary can be wrongly attributing latest crises to local weather change.
“Local weather itself is just not meaningfully affecting transportation, however horrible local weather coverage, together with that of Pete Buttigieg,” Epstein stated.
“For instance, the EPA’s new air pollution requirements represent a de facto EV mandate that can pressure Individuals to drive inferior automobiles and place large new demand for dependable electrical energy on an already failing grid.”
One other local weather knowledgeable pointed to the rise in general airline flights as a cause for the priority.
“One cause that extra turbulence is recorded is that there are extra flights,” stated Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the director of the Heritage Basis Middle for Power, Local weather and the Surroundings.
“Even when the US stopped utilizing all fossil fuels proper now, it might solely make a distinction of two/10 of 1 diploma centigrade by the 12 months 2100, authorities fashions present. There is not any manner that these adjustments could be attributed to local weather change. The local weather is altering on a regular basis, however there isn’t any cause that these adjustments could be attributed to the usage of greenhouse gases.”
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Furchtgott-Roth additionally attributed the prevalence of social media and connectivity on planes to folks with the ability to report in-flight points nearly immediately.
Nevertheless, the Division of Transportation pushed again on critics and pointed Fox Information Digital to a 2019 research in Nature journal that mentioned connections between local weather change and airline turbulence.
Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., leaves a gathering of the Home Republican Convention on the Capitol Hill Membership April 30, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc by way of Getty Pictures)
A consultant for the division cited the research’s co-author, College of Studying atmospheric science professor Paul Williams, as saying research organizers had gathered a big physique of scientific proof now that turbulence is growing due to local weather change.”
“An invisible kind known as clear-air turbulence is generated by wind shear, which, due to local weather change, is now 15% stronger than within the Nineteen Seventies. We count on an additional strengthening of the wind shear within the coming many years, maybe doubling or tripling the quantity of extreme turbulence,” Williams wrote.
Requests for remark from the Home Transportation Committee’s prime Republican, Sam Graves of Missouri, and prime Democrat, Rick Larsen of Washington, weren’t returned.
Calls positioned to Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, weren’t returned at press time.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox Information Digital.
He joined Fox Information in 2013 as a author and manufacturing assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and tradition for Fox Information Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple College with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story suggestions could be despatched to charles.creitz@fox.com.
Critics accuse Buttigieg of ‘enjoying politics’ after feedback linking turbulence to local weather change
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