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On Thursday’s CNN This Morning, host Kasie Hunt devoted a segment to promoting the liberal view that there needs to be climate regulations to keep hurricanes and other natural disasters from getting worse in the future.

Reacting to Wednesday night’s CNN presidential candidate forum with Vice President Kamala Harris, Hunt recounted:

So, in this election season, we shouldn’t forget that the communities in the Southeast United States are still picking up the pieces after two hurricanes ravaged the region in just two weeks. And, as temperatures rise across the globe from climate change, the number of extreme natural disasters is also increasing.

She then brought aboard CNN meteorologist and “extreme weather field reporter” Derek Van Dam, who began:

Yeah, you hit it — said it perfectly there. So what we used to consider extreme weather is now actually the new normal, and it’s going to continue this way until we curb these trapping greenhouse gases. Now, in last night’s town hall, there was this void on the topic of climate and the environment, but there was this one moment.

After a clip of Vice President Harris declaring that she has changed her view on banning fracking, Van Dam warned viewers about the future as he continued: “Mitigating greenhouse gases — that is the key. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret. If we don’t, it is extremely expensive. Take last year, for example. We had a record number of billion dollar plus disasters. And if we go towards this year, we’re still rewriting the history books…”

He then presented a chart showing the dollar value of natural disaster damage increasing with each decade since the 1980s:

Look at the previous decades as well — 2010 to 2019, nearly a trillion dollars from these natural disasters — 2017 sticks out in my mind. I was in Houston for Hurricane Harvey. That was an incredible rain event that caused so much catastrophic flooding. And the reason is, is because of the heat that’s baked into our atmosphere. Remember, when we warm our planet, we also warm the oceans, and so that allows for more water vapor in the atmosphere. And that allows for more frequent and more intense rainfall events like Harvey.

He soon added:

And also with our warming oceans, we see this rapid intensification occurring more frequently as well. There’s been an uptick just in the past decades of these hurricanes going from tropical storm to major category 5 just like Milton did just a couple of weeks ago. And no state across the U.S., Kasie, is sheltered from these billion dollar disasters. It happens everywhere. Climate change is happening now.

Hunt wrapped up by lamenting the political pressures around the issue make it difficult to take action: “Yeah, another reminder last night that both the lack of discussion about this and also the way in which it’s talked about shows you how the dynamics in our political system make it so ill-equipped to deal with this problem that you’ve just laid out.”

It was not mentioned that part of the reason for the increase in dollar value of natural disaster damage is because more people have moved into vulnerable areas and built more. There has also been an observable pattern that hurricane activity sometimes increases for several years and, at other times, it diminishes. For example, between 2001 and 2010, there were 19 hurricanes that made landfall in the U.S., but, between 2006 and 2015, the number was only eight.

Transcript follows:

CNN This Morning

October 24, 2024

6:24 a.m. Eastern

KASIE HUNT: So, in this election season, we shouldn’t forget that the communities in the Southeast United States are still picking up the pieces after two hurricanes ravaged the region in just two weeks. And, as temperatures rise across the globe from climate change, the number of extreme natural disasters is also increasing. Our meteorologist — our weather man, Derek Van Dam, is here. Derek, good morning to you.

DEREK VAN DAM: Yeah, you hit it — said it perfectly there. So what we used to consider extreme weather is now actually the new normal, and it’s going to continue this way until we curb these trapping greenhouse gases. Now, in last night’s town hall, there was this void on the topic of climate and the environment, but there was this one moment.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Finally, on fracking, you said you’re clear — you would not ban it as President.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: No, I would not ban it as President.

COOPER: And you’re clear on that. Do you think it is bad for the environment?

HARRIS: I think that we have proven that we can invest in a clean-energy economy — we can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, we can work on sustaining what we need to do to protect this beautiful Earth of ours, and not ban fracking.

VAN DAM: Mitigating greenhouse gases — that is the key. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret. If we don’t, it is extremely expensive. Take last year, for example. We had a record number of billion dollar plus disasters. And if we go towards this year, we’re still rewriting the history books here, but we have this data that we’ve already accumulated over $15 billion from the disasters we’ve had, but this is only valid through August. Remember September and October? Yeah, Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. So those numbers are going to drastically rise.

Look at the previous decades as well — 2010 to 2019, nearly a trillion dollars from these natural disasters — 2017 sticks out in my mind. I was in Houston for Hurricane Harvey. That was an incredible rain event that caused so much catastrophic flooding. And the reason is, is because of the heat that’s baked into our atmosphere. Remember, when we warm our planet, we also warm the oceans, and so that allows for more water vapor in the atmosphere. And that allows for more frequent and more intense rainfall events like Harvey. Just like Milton — remember the flash flooding that happened.

And also with our warming oceans, we see this rapid intensification occurring more frequently as well. There’s been an uptick just in the past decades of these hurricanes going from tropical storm to major category 5 just like Milton did just a couple of weeks ago. And no state across the U.S., Kasie, is sheltered from these billion dollar disasters. It happens everywhere. Climate change is happening now.

HUNT: Yeah, another reminder last night that both the lack of discussion about this and also the way in which it’s talked about shows you how the dynamics in our political system make it so ill-equipped to deal with this problem that you’ve just laid out. Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, so grateful to have you. Thank you.