Report Detailing U.S. Threats Ignores Climate Change

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/report-detailing-u-s-threats-ignores-climate-change/?fbclid=IwAR1hHnqeN20iumG2P4gUgEcvlhMsnbX4VeD6OhyNIUP7s3AfeTTIf9TBLBc

By Thomas Frank, E&E News on January 7, 2020

The Trump administration’s latest National Preparedness Report, which describes the greatest threats and hazards to the country, says nothing about climate change, drought or sea-level rise.

The 2019 report is the eighth annual summary of U.S. vulnerability to threats such as disasters and terrorism but the first to eschew the word “climate,” except for one reference to “school climate” in a section on preventing school violence.

“Drought" and “sea-level rise” also are absent, even though the report notes the devastating California wildfires of 2018, which killed 100 people, were widely blamed on a decadelong drought that turned the state’s forests into tinderboxes.

The preparedness report, written by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is one of the administration’s latest steps to deny the dangers of climate change, despite government warnings that global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

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