Eugene Robinson: ‘Very Likely’ That Harvey’s Effects ‘Were Exacerbated by Climate Change’

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson argued that the impact of Hurricane Harvey was increased by climate change and the president should talk about climate change.

Robinson said, “It’s going to be enormously expensive. It’s going to take a long, long time to fix. So, that’s one piece of it. The other piece it, and these are words that the president is not likely to speak, but he should, climate change. It is fairly likely — certainly very likely, that the effects of this hurricane were exacerbated by climate change, by the fact that the water in the Gulf of Mexico was so warm, by the fact that there were no prevailing currents to steer the storm away, and instead, it just sort of sat over Houston and delivered up to 52 inches of rain. Which is just — it was a new continental US record. And there are huge implications, I think, for the planning and protection of coastal cities, including Houston, but not limited to Houston. New Orleans, Miami, there a lot of cities that really need to take a really good look at how they will deal with the next big storm. Because there will be more big storms.”

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