Since Dec. 26, 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom has taken no ownership for the $1 billion in damages caused by the nine consecutive rainstorms that pummeled the state. No blame for the 21 lives lost. No accountability for countless power outages, levee breaks, landslides, flooding, or washouts.
Instead, the governor has chosen to eclipse any wrongdoing by his administration with the Left’s favorite culprit: climate change.
Facing tough questions about the storms’ impact on families, communities, and state infrastructure, the governor blamed global warming for the catastrophe. Going one step further, the governor suggested the rainstorms are “proof that the climate crisis is real.”
Rather than taking responsibility for his failure to prepare the state for storms that were heavily forecasted in the weeks prior, Newsom urged the nation to believe that our state is powerless against a changing climate.
In reality, the governor could have taken a number of measures to prepare the state to absorb the impact from the rainfall. Among those measures, the administration could have developed more floodplains along rivers to divert major floodwaters from reaching local cities and counties.
For communities facing the greatest flood risk, local evacuation drills should have been a major priority for the governor. Major flooding and rainstorms can require millions to evacuate from cities and counties. Residents must be prepared to do so without hesitation.
Flood insurance is a critical component of any plan to safeguard the interests of homeowners facing a flood risk. The governor has done nothing to encourage property owners in flood territory to purchase flood insurance. This would have made the enormous expense of restoring dilapidated homes far more affordable for working families.
This is certainly not the first time the governor has squarely pinned the blame for a crisis on the Earth’s climate, particularly where his administration is at fault. Nonetheless, a slew of recent actions by the governor reveal a silent agenda behind constantly blaming the climate crisis: an unprecedented wave of legislation purported to address climate change, but that actually invests billions of taxpayer dollars into large-scale industries, interest groups, and initiatives that do little to address any crisis.
Don’t take my word for it. Just last year, the governor championed six legislative priorities in the state legislature, five of which he signed into law. These so-called “climate change initiatives” totaled more than $54 billion.
The irony is that, in spite of all the legislative priorities that supposedly address climate change, none of that funding prioritized reducing the impact of rainstorms on California infrastructure, counties, and families.
The Omnibus package passed by Congress on Dec. 23, 2022 is a mirror image of Newsom’s agenda to combat climate change. Hidden deep within hundreds of pages of legislation, billions of dollars are targeted to “green initiatives” that purportedly safeguard the environment.
They include things like banning gas vehicles, mandating electric vehicles, banning leaf blowers, banning propane heaters, and creating new and burdensome carbon taxes on businesses, as well as other policies that burden the middle-class and kill jobs.
Here is what we really know about climate change: the Earth’s climate is constantly changing—that is why we experience four seasons throughout the year. The climate has been changing since the Earth’s inception more than 4.5 billion years ago. That is no mystery. The question is the extent to which human beings are responsible for that change.
In 2007, an unexpectedly thoughtful explanation of the impact human beings have had on the planet’s climate came from comedian George Carlin, who said:
“The planet has been through a lot worse than us [humans]. It’s been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … and we think some plastic bags are going to make a difference?”
Of course, Carlin was adding humor. Nonetheless, he highlighted a real problem: Our nation’s elected leaders are increasingly using climate change as a means by which to accomplish their own agendas. Newsom is no exception.
The bottom line is there is no evidence to suggest a climate crisis is to blame for several weeks of rainstorms in California. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that the Left has used and will continue to use climate change to achieve their personal agendas.
We cannot afford to allow our governor to use climate change as an excuse to spend our hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Next time the governor casts a spotlight on climate change, we must collectively redirect that spotlight and expose the culprit behind his real agenda.
