Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders declared that it’s “pretty dumb” for anyone not to use Hurricane Harvey to discuss climate change in an interview Thursday evening.
“I think it is pretty dumb not to ask some hard questions about why more rain is now falling, and has fallen in the Houston area, as I understand it, than any time that people can have measured,” the senator said on CNN.
“It it related to climate change? Is some of the intensity and the magnitude of this related to Climate change? I think most scientists believe it is,” Sanders said. “The right question to be asking is ‘what does this mean for the future?'”
It didn’t take long for news outlets to begin covering the 50 inches of rainwater that Harvey poured on the Houston metropolitan area and other parts of Texas. The Category 4 storm made landfall last weekend, and stayed in the area flooding roads and destroying homes.
Factcheck.org published an in-depth look into the issue, essentially arguing that there is credible evidence on either side of the argument, and that the academic community is hardly in consensus regarding whether or not climate change made Harvey worse.
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