No less than three weeks ago, eastern Texas was struck by a powerful Category 4 Hurricane, known as Hurricane Harvey. Hurricane Harvey left behind over $70 billion worth in damages and left roughly 32,000 people displaced in shelters across the state of Texas. But, could this have been prevented?

Hurricanes are natural disasters that have been around for thousands of years, there’s no denying that. There is also no denying how we could never really stop a hurricane from forming, but maybe we could control the intensity that they bring by taking climate change more seriously.

Climate change is an environmental and economic issue that not many people, including the president, seem to take into consideration. NewsWeek.com said, “despite what President Trump and his appointees say, the scientific evidence keeps pouring in that climate change is real, is really caused by humans, and will cause real impacts on our lives.”

Climate change isn’t just about weather, we know that. Even NewsWeek.com said, “it’s not that easy to draw a line from climate change to an individual storm.” So why talk about it?

The answer? Even though we cannot blame the hurricane on the concept of climate change, we could blame it for the intensity of it.

NewsWeek.com states that hurricanes feed off warm water. Climate change causes areas to be hotter, making near-perfect conditions for hurricanes to form. Warm air can hold more water vapor which makes it easier for the storm to dump more rain.

Could it be that because the Earth is getting warmer, hurricanes are becoming even more powerful?

Steve Baccher, a local climate change expert here at Bucks gave the simple answered, “yes.” He went on to comment that, “storms are more powerful than ever before,” and explained how the intensity of storms have increased by 7 percent.

Also when asked why this issue isn’t talked about more and why more people don’t seem to care about climate change issues, he stated that many media outlets spend great deals of money to provide fake news which installs doubt in many reader’s minds.

Professor Baccher also said if people could do something to try and draw more attention to climate change, it would be to “pick up the phone, call your congressman and two senators, and say ‘climate change is real. I want you to enact legislation to address it. Or I will vote for someone who will.’ ”

If you would like to donate to help out hurricane victims, you can visit many charitable organizations such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army, SPCA, Humane Society and many more. If you would like to donate to a more specific cause, you can visit www.NVOAD.org to learn more.
We must do more than just read about it climate change.

We must start realizing that the effects of climate change are strong and could only get worse.