A person uses a garden hose in an effort to save a neighboring home from catching fire during the Eaton Fire on Jan. 8, 2025 in Altadena, California. Over 1,000 structures have burned, with two people dead, in wildfires fueled by intense Santa Ana Winds across L.A. County. (Mario Tama | Getty Images)
The first week of 2025 brought extreme fire and ice across the United States. The West Coast is experiencing horrific wildfires and evacuating more than 100,000 people from their homes, and the mid-Atlantic is recovering from back-to-back winter storms. These “natural” disasters put our communities at extreme risk and are a result of climate change.
Meanwhile, two enemies of the environment will be inaugurated just one week apart. Former West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey was sworn into the West Virginia Governor’s office on Monday, Jan.13, and Donald Trump will re-enter the United State’s President’s office on Jan. 20. Both are a nightmare for our collective climate future and achieved their positions of power by riding the backs of corporate interests.
In particular, Morrissey’s success is thanks to one of the most effective and cruelly motivated political organizations, the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which focuses on electing Republicans for state attorneys general. RAGA is notorious for playing the long game in climate obstruction and the diminishment of reproductive and LGBTQ rights. They are responsible for overturning the Chevron Doctrine in 2024 and winning West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2022.
These Supreme Court cases prevent the ability of federal agencies like the EPA to set rules and enforce environmental protections and limit the authority of the EPA to regulate emissions from power plants, respectively. Put simply, these efforts by RAGA hinder the environmental experts in our country from protecting our health, air, water, and land.
West Virginia’s new governor is simply an extension of RAGA’s political machine having no original ideas and putting the bottom-line of corporations first. This legal game of enabling polluters to evade accountability for their harm to the environment and public health is one that has tangible and negative consequences to local and global communities. We know that human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, is the cause of increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere leading to climate change. Even more, we know that climate change is a key driver of worsened wildfires and winter storms.
Climate disasters have cost our country more than $2.785 trillion since 1980. The frequency, intensity and price of these disasters are increasing every year and will continue to do so as the climate crisis goes unaddressed. The wildfires in Los Angeles are projected to be the “costliest fire on record” in American history at a preliminary estimate of more than $50 billion.
Most concerning is that our state and country are not investing adequately in preventing these disasters nor in responding to them. During this latest winter storm, West Virginia had the highest power outage rate in the country. This comes as no surprise given that West Virginia ranks 50th in power grid reliability and infrastructure.
Our forced reliance on fossil fuels can be connected to why we have the weakest electrical grid in the United States. Almost 90% of electricity generation comes from coal-fired power plants, and three in five power stations are at risk of flooding in the state. Both of these figures represent the highest numbers nationwide.
On the national level, last year was the second year straight that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) went into hurricane season low on funding just before Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage to the Southeast and became one of the costliest and deadliest hurricanes in history. FEMA announced a $9 billion shortfall for hurricane relief efforts in October 2024, the same week that the United States sent nearly the same amount ($8.7 billion) to Israel for military funding to commit genocide in Gaza.
Under our state’s new governor and country’s new president, investment in climate mitigation and adaptation measures is unthinkable, while the reversal of the insufficient climate regulations and laws established by the previous federal administration is probable.
This sounds grim, and there is no sugarcoating it — it is atrocious. That is why it is more critical than ever to hold those in power accountable for the threats they created to our collective future, regardless of the political party or office. Given the threat that our governor and president pose to our planet, there is still an opportunity to make change locally.
Our counties, cities and towns must lead in the face of more frequent and severe climate disasters and new project proposals by fossil fuel interests. Investing in clean energy and climate resilience projects, making a declaration of climate emergency that accelerates local initiatives, or passing local ordinances that prevent climate change-causing companies to pollute our neighborhoods are all ways that local governments can and should put our communities first in this new year.
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