Fossil-Fueled Climate Change Left Out of Media Coverage of Hurricane Helene: Scientist Peter Kalmus

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show looking at Hurricane Helene. As the Category 4 storm tore through the southeastern United States, leaving nearly a hundred people dead and a trail of devastation, the storm triggered catastrophic flooding, tornado damage, downed trees, submerged entire neighborhoods in water across Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee and North and South Carolina. At least 30 deaths were reported in a single county in North Carolina, Buncombe County, where the city of Asheville has been cut off after the Swannanoa River crested six feet above previous records, flooding entire neighborhoods. Officials say the death toll is likely to rise, as many more are still missing. Hundreds of roads remain blocked by mudslides and standing water, hindering rescue efforts and the delivery of vital aid and supplies.

Meanwhile, more than 2 million customers remain without power as of Monday, while there’s limited phone and communications access. In North Carolina, city officials say Asheville residents may not have access to clean water for weeks, after Helene severely damaged its water treatment plant and piping system. Many state residents criticized officials for failing to share accurate information about the severity of the storm ahead of it making landfall.

Hurricane Helene made landfall Friday in Florida’s Big Bend, fueled by abnormally warm water in the Gulf of Mexico. On Saturday, Greenpeace posted on social media that, quote, “Hurricane Helene must be a wake-up call for climate justice.”

For more, we go to Raleigh, North Carolina, where we’re joined by Peter Kalmus, climate activist, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He’s speaking on his own behalf, not on behalf of NASA.

Peter, can you talk about the link between what has taken place in the southeastern United States and the climate catastrophe, climate change?

PETER KALMUS: Yeah. So, the planet’s overheating. It’s irreversible. It’s caused by the fossil fuel industry. And the reason I say “industry” specifically, not “fossil fuels,” is because this industry has been systematically lying and blocking action for almost 50 years, for decades and decades. And they’ve said publicly, testifying in front of Congress, that they plan to continue systematically blocking action.

And this will get worse as the planet continues to get hotter. It’s getting hotter every day. Every day we continue burning fossil fuels and allowing this industry to continue spreading disinformation and blocking action, the planet gets hotter. Hotter ocean fuels these storms, causes them to intensify more rapidly, causes them to get much more powerful. And a hotter atmosphere, because we’re living on a currently overheating planet — hotter atmosphere holds more water, so we get these intense, intense rainfalls, which cause the sorts of flooding that’s happening right now. It’s still high waters in the western part of my state.

I think that this is the most evil thing that it’s possible to imagine, that fossil fuel executives and lobbyists will continue to lie so that they can line their bank accounts more at the irreversible expense of our planet and the future of humanity.

AMY GOODMAN: I saw you at Climate Week this past week here in New York City. Among the actions that took place was people attempting to shut down Citibank for funding, continuing to fund fossil fuel projects. The day that I was covering it, 31 people were arrested. Can you talk about the significance of these actions? I mean, you’re a scientist. You, too, have been arrested protesting issues around climate change and entities that are involved in fueling climate change. What effect does activism have on the scientists? You are both.

PETER KALMUS: Well, yeah, I feel desperate as a climate scientist. I’ve been sounding the alarm since 2006. Other scientists have been sounding it for far longer, Dr. James Hansen in the ’80s, even back before that. And we’ve been completely ignored. You get politicians, even like President Biden, even Democrats, saying things that, like, “We listen to the scientists.” And then, you know, the last presidential debate, we had Trump saying this is a hoax and giving word salad with China, and then Vice President Harris saying, “Climate change is real, but we’re going to expand fracking,” right? And that’s the cause of climate change. So, we’re living in this strange dystopia where scientists are being completely ignored.

So, I personally don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried a lot of different kinds of activism. Civil disobedience has by far been the most effective, the most effective in building the movement, inspiring other activists, getting this urgency. So, we need the public to have two things before — I think, before we’re going to be able to act, before we’re going to hold these politicians to account. We need urgency, and we need cause. And the public, in my opinion, doesn’t know those two things. Like, they don’t have the sense that this is existentially urgent, that this is irreversible. However hot the planet gets, that’s how hot it’s going to stay for the rest of our lives, for our children’s lives, grandchildren, many, many generations. And they don’t know cause. There’s a lot of confusion.

This is caused by the fossil fuel industry. So, if we want to stop this, preserve what we can, we need to know that that’s the cause, that they’re blocking action. And we have to target that. Financing from the banks is a huge part of this. They’re still expanding new fossil fuel projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline in my state and in Virginia, which is creating natural gas for export that we don’t even need in America, just so these fat cats like Joe Manchin can get more rich. People don’t understand this. And they need to know urgency. This is irreversible. These storms, heat waves, floods, crop failures, migrants — all of this destabilization is going to get worse. It seems like we’re, you know, just, as humans, more interested in blowing each other up than being grateful and preserving this absolute jewel of a planet that has given — gives us, all of us, lives, gives us literally everything. And it seems like we’re not able to get our act together.

And, you know, we have everything we need to stop this problem. We have solar panels. We have battery storage. We have wind. If there was will, if the media let people know, if the presidents and world leaders let people know urgency and cause, I think we would solve this so incredibly fast. But there’s just confusion out there. The Republican Party is still deeply in denial. The Democratic Party is still deeply in denial. And it’s just a human tragedy unfolding in real time. And I’m just so disappointed at everyone right now — not everyone, but most people.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Kalmus, talk specifically about the media. It’s the way people come to understand the world, outside of their own conversations and their reading. Can you talk about how the media addresses climate change?

PETER KALMUS: Yeah. So, I was reading some articles about the flooding in western North Carolina in The New York Times. The articles did not even mention climate change, not a single mention. This is what’s driving it. And then there’s the larger context of irreversible global overheating, which I’ve already mentioned. It’s caused by the fossil fuel industry. They’ve been lying and blocking action systematically for decades. And this impact will get worse. We’ll see even worse storms in the future. It’s all, like, the gradation of climate impacts, everything we’ve been seeing around the world, happening more frequently, more intensely, until global systems of infrastructure — food, water — start to break down in ways that are hard to imagine for us right now. This all gets worse as things get hotter and hotter, driven by the fossil fuel industry, which has been lying.

I think that’s critical — obviously, probably shouldn’t say it in such an emotional way as what I’ve just said, because they’re trying to be objective reporters. I’m speaking as a human right now, as a parent. But they need to — reporters need to start giving this whole context. This is part of the whole story. It’s —

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds, Peter.

PETER KALMUS: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, do better, media, please.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kalmus, climate activist, climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, speaking on his own behalf, not on behalf of NASA.

Happy birthday to Paul Powell! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.