'I can't even find the right adjective': Hurricane Milton offers a catastrophic reminder

By Eugene Robinson

Less than two weeks ago, Hurricane Helene ravaged southern Appalachia with unprecedented floods and claimed hundreds of lives. Today, Hurricane Milton is bearing down on the west coast of Florida, which is still cleaning up from Helene’s glancing blow. And less than a month from now, voters will choose between Democrats who accept the reality of climate change and Republicans who do not.

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Milton could make it nine, though forecasters expect the storm to diminish slightly in wind speed before it lands. Another impact of climate change — roughly half a foot of sea level rise in the Gulf since 2010 — makes storm surge and coastal flooding much worse than before. Residents of low-lying areas in the Tampa Bay area have been told to leave their homes, and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor announced bluntly: “If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die.”

Many Republicans are reluctant even to acknowledge climate change, much less do anything about it, because of politics, not physics.

Four of the states that suffered fatalities and major damage from Helene — Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee — have Republican governors and legislative majorities. Given all the death and destruction, you might think those officials would be clamoring for urgent action to cut global greenhouse gas emissions and keep climate change short of the worst-case scenarios.

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