A massive flash flood in Texas Hill Country, undoubtedly exacerbated by climate change, killed over 30 people yesterday. The photos of the destruction were heartbreaking. On the same day, President Trump was taking a victory lap over the approval of the BBB, which, among many other things, dismantled Biden’s program of investment in green technology to the maximum extent feasible. Is there a connection between these two events?
Of course there is, but no one on the left is making it. The victims of the flood should be treated as martyrs to shortsighted environmental policy. Instead, the implicit narrative of the right–that deaths and destruction from supersized storms are acceptable collateral damage in light of the overriding need to maximize the use of fossil fuels–is winning the day.