The Texas state climatologist appointed by Governor George W. Bush in 2000 is connecting climate change to the devastating floods that swept the state last week, even though Republican legislators and environmental regulators still question whether the planet is warming.
“We have observed an increase of heavy rain events, at least in the South-Central United States, including Texas,” John Nielsen-Gammon told the Texas Tribune in an interview last week. “And it’s consistent with what we would expect from climate change.”
The floods killed at least 15 people and left 12 missing in different parts of the state. “It turned the living room into a gigantic washing machine,” a resident of Wimberley, TX told CNN. The river crested at 40 feet—27 feet above flood stage—and at least 400 homes in Wimberley and San Marcos were destroyed, after the area received 10 inches of rain in one night. In Houston, hundreds of vehicles were stranded and about 1,400 structures “suffered severe damage as waters crept up.”
Nielsen-Gammon, who teaches at Texas A&M University, pointed to extreme weather events as “among the most agreed-upon effects of global warming in all the scientific literature on the subject,” the Tribune reports. But the Democratic minority tried and failed to get the issue on the agenda in the state’s biennial legislative session earlier this year.
“In part, it’s ideologically driven and intellectually lazy,” said Rep. Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas). “My question is: What are people scared of? Are they scared of the truth?”
“We have observed an increase of heavy rain events, at least in the South-Central United States, including Texas,” John Nielsen-Gammon told the Texas Tribune in an interview last week. “And it’s consistent with what we would expect from climate change.”
The floods killed at least 15 people and left 12 missing in different parts of the state. “It turned the living room into a gigantic washing machine,” a resident of Wimberley, TX told CNN. The river crested at 40 feet—27 feet above flood stage—and at least 400 homes in Wimberley and San Marcos were destroyed, after the area received 10 inches of rain in one night. In Houston, hundreds of vehicles were stranded and about 1,400 structures “suffered severe damage as waters crept up.”
Nielsen-Gammon, who teaches at Texas A&M University, pointed to extreme weather events as “among the most agreed-upon effects of global warming in all the scientific literature on the subject,” the Tribune reports. But the Democratic minority tried and failed to get the issue on the agenda in the state’s biennial legislative session earlier this year.
“In part, it’s ideologically driven and intellectually lazy,” said Rep. Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas). “My question is: What are people scared of? Are they scared of the truth?”
