Filenews 10 July 2025 - by Michael R Bloomberg
The tragic news from central Texas is heartbreaking, but it's also outrageous — because so many lives could have been saved if elected officials had done their job. They owe more than thoughts and prayers to the families who lost loved ones – the death toll from the July 4 floods now exceeds 100.
They owe them a sincere commitment to right their fatal mistake by addressing the problem they have long since turned their backs on: climate change.
The scientific evidence is clear: the most frequent extreme weather events we experience are due to climate change – and they will get worse. As the director of the Texas Center for Extreme Weather at Texas A&M University put it, storms and flooding in central Texas are "exactly what the future holds." And yet, so many elected officials pretend to be the opposite.
The latest terrible floods are not just about a natural disaster in a state. This is also about a political failure that is happening in states across the country, especially in Washington. Refusing to acknowledge that climate change carries the death penalty sends innocent people, including too many children, to premature graves.
Almost a year ago, Hurricane Helene caused devastating flooding in western North Carolina, which caused the deaths of more than 100 people. A few months later, wildfires in California killed 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. This month, death and destruction linked to climate change hit Texas. What will be the next goal? No place is safe.
Unfortunately, not all lives can be saved by climate change, but many more could be saved if elected officials stopped pretending to be powerless to do anything about it. It is a fact that climate change is a manageable problem with practical solutions. These solutions will not only save lives, but will also improve our health, reduce electricity bills and create more jobs. The more these officials pretend otherwise, the more the world will suffer and the more people will die. And yet, what are the rulers doing in Washington? Worse than "nothing": they actively thwart efforts to tackle climate change and help societies cope with its damages.
The Trump administration has deleted the words "climate change" — and critical climate data and information — from government websites, as if the problem could magically disappear. It seeks to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency's obligation to combat climate change. And it has put lives at risk, cancelling grants to local communities to help them prepare for the impacts of climate change and cutting key jobs at the National Weather Service (NWS) that help communities prepare for and respond to disasters, leaving weather service offices in flood-prone areas understaffed.
Last week, the government even proposed abolishing a research agency that plays a crucial role in predicting extreme weather events. And the list doesn't end here.
On the same day that the floods in Texas killed dozens of people, the president signed a budget bill that, in addition to accumulating $3 trillion in national debt, destroys the efforts being made in the country to promote Renewable Energy. The new budget removes tax credits for clean energy generation, electric vehicles and a cleaner manufacturing industry, and also repeals the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which Congress created to help increase private sector investment in clean energy. As a result, far fewer such projects will be done, destroying jobs in communities across the country and increasing energy costs.
All of this will make it harder for the U.S. to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that help overpower deadly storms, while increasing the human blood toll and economic costs of extreme weather events — and making it harder for states and local governments to recover from them.
Local and state governments don't have the resources to deal with disasters on their own, which is why Texas Governor Greg Abbott has asked for support and financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, the government has proceeded with deforestation of the service, which has lost about 20% of its full-time staff since the beginning of the year. As if that weren't enough, the government has proposed getting rid of FEMA altogether, which would be a disaster in itself.
In short: The federal government is trying to pull back from trying to help communities prepare for and respond to natural disasters caused by climate change, as they become increasingly deadly and destructive. It will not succeed. As the floods in Texas painfully prove, Washington cannot escape its duty to tackle climate change. This effort will only lead to more victims and greater financial burdens for communities.
To his credit, Abbott has defended the state's clean energy industry and helped repeal several bills that would have placed an anti-free-market cap on clean energy production and subjected wind and solar projects to additional bureaucracy. We need more elected representatives who recognize that climate change should not be a partisan issue – and that it requires urgent cooperation from members of both parties, as well as from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
This is not only the right thing to do, but, over time, it will also become essential for political survival – because as extreme weather events become more and more frequent, voters will increasingly hold elected officials accountable for taking action.
Our governments can do much more to protect us – and our children, and their children – from the worsening effects of climate change. But for that to happen, we all need to make our voices heard and our votes counted.
Rendering – Editing: Lydia Roubopoulou
