The hurricanes that have struck Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, and many other places in the Caribbean have caused an incredible amount of devastation, and are an absolute tragedy. We should do everything we can to help those impacted by the hurricanes. What we should not do, however, is use these tragedies as political tools to advance our respective agendas.
That’s exactly what climate alarmists like Michael Moore have done by writing articles claiming that climate change is making hurricane devastation worse.
CFACT at West Virginia University decided that they needed to show their fellow students the truth on climate change and hurricanes and try to undo the damage that political opportunists like Michael Moore have done. Using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), collegians showed passersby a graph that shows hurricanes of all categories decreasing in frequency over the last 100 years. As horrible as recent hurricanes are, they are natural tragedies.
“It was very well received by students,” said freshman Nathan Burdette. “I think a lot of people were receptive to having clear, understandable data right in front of them. We got a lot of people signing up to learn more.”
It’s an issue that is incredibly important to states like West Virginia, which depend on coal mining jobs as a major part of their employment. If climate alarmists win the dialogue on climate change making hurricanes worse and more frequent, it will fuel further fires to stop President Trump’s plans to reopen many coal mines in the state.
It’s a small step, but one that CFACT chapters across the nation are dedicated to making to bring the truth on climate change to their generation. Just check out this video made by collegians at the Ohio State University. Many students changed their minds on the relation between climate change and hurricanes after looking at real data.