As of December 17 local time, the northeast of the United States has been hit by a rare blizzard for two consecutive days. According to a report released by the National Weather Service, the blizzard covered the northeast from North Carolina to New England, affecting up to 60 million residents and snowfalling up to more than 1 meter.
The strong wind and heavy snow pose a great threat to the travel and even the lives of the local residents.
According to ABC, the blizzard killed at least seven people in traffic accidents, power outages for more than 100,000 families and more than 600 flights cancelled.
The slippery road caused by snow also caused a large number of traffic accidents. New York City police received more than 200 traffic accidents in a day, including 27 cars crashing and seriously injuring 6 people.
The bad weather has once again triggered a heated discussion about the frequent natural disasters in the United States. Experts believe that the reason behind it is closely related to the environmental policy of the U.S. government.
The incidence of natural disasters is high, and the suffering of the American people is unspeakable.
In addition to this rare blizzard in the northeast, the United States has been hit by hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters this year. Frequent natural disasters have caused irreversible harm to the American people.
According to the National Weather Service, there were 30 named tropical storms in 2020, 13 of which reached hurricane status, making it the worst hurricane season in history.
Since the record, the average number of hurricanes in the past year has been only six.
Among them, the last hurricane of the year, Ita, caused great damage.” Heavy rains caused by Ita have caused flash flooding in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, killing at least eight people, flooding dozens of roads and washing down at least four bridges. Ita” also caused a large-scale power outage in Florida, which seriously affected more than 50,000 people.
In addition, the number and destructiveness of wildfires in the United States this year are also rare in history. According to the National Fire Center (NIFC), as of early December, 52,934 wildfires in the United States had burned 14,905 square miles of land this year, the second largest year in the past decade.
The fire had disastrous consequences for the states.
In Oregon, wildfires burned 1,90,090 square miles of forests, killing nine people and destroying more than 4,000 homes; in Colorado, 326 square miles of land were burned and tens of thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes; and California, a total of 9,639 wildfires were burned this year. 6,527 square miles of land were destroyed, 33 people were killed in the fire, and more than 10,000 buildings were destroyed.
U.S. government policy and environment are the enemy
The frequent occurrence of natural disasters has caused untold suffering to the American people, and there are many man-made reasons behind this. The regression of environmental policy in the United States in the past four years is directly related to a series of natural disasters.
Experts point out that there are two main reasons for the frequent forest wildfires in California this year. One is the rapid expansion of the city; the other is that global warming has caused California to experience abnormally high temperatures this year, both of which are dominated by human factors.
In addition, warming is also the main cause of extreme weather such as blizzards and hurricanes in the northeast of the United States.
The Trump administration cannot shirk its responsibility for this series of catastrophies.
The New York Times recently reviewed the environmental impact of Trump’s policies during his reign. He pointed out that Trump has relaxed nearly 100 regulations on air, water and atmospheric pollution, which has led to the rapid accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
And Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement has set fire to global efforts to save energy and reduce emissions.
Over the past four years, greenhouse gas levels have risen far faster than expected, exacerbating global warming, which in turn has triggered a series of destructive effects such as sea level rise, storms, high temperatures, droughts and wildfires.
Environmental damage has caused the future to be irreversible.
Because of the particularity of environmental problems, mitigating or even reversing global warming is a long-term slow task, but overdrafting the environment can cause immediate harm, and the process is even irreversible.
The New York Times believes that the Trump administration’s environmental policies have caused permanent harm to the United States and even the world.
Even if he overturned all the adverse policies of his predecessor administration, it would be difficult to reverse the trend of environmental degradation, despite President-elect Biden’s repeated statements that he would be determined to fight against climate warming.
Because greenhouse gas emissions will further lead to the accelerated leakage of greenhouse gases that were otherwise confined to the ice, which will not change with policy changes.
In addition, as the election situation gradually became clear, Trump seemed to be interested in seizing the last time to make a big deal on the environment.
On December 10th local time, the Trump administration announced that it would auction oil extraction rights in Southern California and Alaska.
The Trump administration first announced in 2018 that it would sell oil extraction rights over 90% of the waters of the United States, but was forced to put it on hold because of opposition from voters in Florida, a key swing state. Without election pressure, Trump was finally able to bring it up again, which laid a “time bomb” for the next government.
Combating global warming should be the common responsibility of mankind, but the United States puts economic interests first and ignores environmental protection, resulting in frequent consequences.
This year’s high-frequency natural disasters seem to be declaring that the consequences of environmental damage have come.
