A Second Type of Disaster Politics?

Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
Environmental and Societal Impacts Group

Most people familiar with government politics and disasters would not be surprised by Rutherford Platt's assertion that, "cynical or not, disasters are often good for the business of government as well as the reelection prospects of politicians." But in recent years, there seems to be a second type of disaster politics emerging: Disasters have become caught up in the usually partisan and sometimes virulent debate over global warming.

For example, consider the 18 April 2000 joint news conference (www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s412.htm; www.fema.gov/nwz00/nwz00_09.htm) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "which focused on global climate change and links between a warming atmosphere and more severe weather."

At the news conference, NOAA released its most recent data on temperature trends in the United States, showing that "The United States has just experienced the warmest January-March period ever." The NOAA Administrator stated, "Our climate is warming at a faster rate than ever before recorded. Ignoring climate change and the most recent warming patterns could be costly to the nation. Small changes in global temperatures can lead to more extreme weather events including droughts, floods and hurricanes."

The FEMA Director then reported that "There is no doubt that the human and financial costs of weather related disasters have been increasing in recent years" and cited data showing that "more frequent and severe weather calamities and other natural phenomena during the past decade required 460 major disasters to be declared, nearly double the 237 declarations for the previous ten-year period and more than any other decade on record."

Then in a speech the following day the FEMA Director observed (www.fema.gov/library/jlw0041800.htm), "the conditions that will shape this hurricane season are brewing over our oceans. But the decisions that will determine its impact on our lives are being made in our communities. They are made when we pump greenhouse gases into the air . . ."

I have no particular insight into the origins of these comments or the purposes for which they were made. But let's assume that, as important and authoritative national resources, FEMA and NOAA were putting out this information because the impacts of weather and climate are a matter of national concern. If so, then both FEMA and NOAA are unaware of the implications of recent (and not so recent) research in this area, specifically the following:

• Changes in societal vulnerability, not climate, account for the growth in the costs of disasters. In the case of Presidential Disaster Declarations, it is presidential discretion that explains most of the growth in "major disasters" not "more frequent and severe weather calamities."
• This year's greenhouse gas emissions will have no discernible influence on the impacts of the upcoming hurricane season.
• The most effective strategies for dealing with disasters actually have nothing to do with global warming. They include measures that the FEMA Director mentioned after "pump greenhouse gases into the air," such as: "[not] build in flood plains ... [not] pave over our coastlines ... retrofit our buildings" and so on.

A less generous interpretation of the news conference is that it was held to lend support to the Administration's climate change policies. If so, then FEMA and NOAA actually may have done more harm than good. For instance,

• By misattributing the causes of growth in weather and climate extremes over the past few decades, they have provided ample fodder for the legions of so-called "contrarians" who oppose action on energy policy to combat climate change.
• They have placed scientists (like myself) who may think climate change is an important national issue in a difficult position of having to respond – when asked by the media, for example – that the federal agency information is actually contrary to current scientific understanding. This creates an unnecessarily divisive situation among parties ostensibly working toward the shared goal of improving national policies in response to extreme weather and climate.
• And an irony of recent research is that if the nation decides to reduce its federal disaster costs, then the most effective response would be to ignore energy policy and adopt stingy federal disaster assistance policies like those of Ronald Reagan, not the more generous policies of Bill Clinton! Now, whether reducing those costs is a good idea or not is a different matter altogether ...

To be fair to both FEMA and NOAA, on 10 May 2000 they held another news conference on the 2000 hurricane season (www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s425.htm; www.fema.gov/nwz00/nwz00_15.htm). FEMA emphasized the practical steps needed to better prepare for hurricanes and, in response to a question, the NOAA Administrator clearly dismissed any connection between hurricanes and global warming. But the apparent contradiction with both agencies' earlier statements might send a mixed message to the media and the public.

The lesson from all of this seems clear. Natural disasters and energy policy advocacy simply don't mix. Even if the future number and intensity of climate extremes increases as a result of greenhouse gases (or anything else for that matter), the dominant role of increasing societal and environmental vulnerability in the resulting impacts means that preparing for future impacts depends much more on disaster "mitigation" than any conceivable energy policy "mitigation." More effective energy policies certainly make sense to me, but not as a means to address disasters. The sooner we depoliticize this second type of disaster politics, the better.

— Roger A. Pielke, Jr.
Environmental and Societal Impacts Group
National Center for Atmospheric Research
rogerp@ucar.edu

Comments? thunder@ucar.edu

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