Home United States USA — Science Biden to Announce Steps to Help Communities Deal With Extreme Heat

Biden to Announce Steps to Help Communities Deal With Extreme Heat

104
0
SHARE

The measures include protections for workers and funds for better weather prediction, but they are unlikely to satisfy activists who have pushed the president to do more to combat climate change.
President Biden will announce new measures on Thursday aimed at helping communities across the country deal with extreme weather, as rising temperatures scorch much of the country and amplify alarms about the climate crisis.
The announcement, to be made in an auditorium on the White House grounds, will come on a day when the National Weather Service is warning that temperatures in the nation’s capital could hit triple digits for the first time in nearly seven years. White House officials said the new measures would include funding to improve weather prediction, grants to help ensure clean drinking water across the West and protections for workers who are most vulnerable to heat deaths.
Those types of measures — trying to adapt to the effects of global warming rather than dealing with its source — illustrate Mr. Biden’s bind on the climate. Even as heat waves smash temperature records on three continents and some members of his own party have called for him to be more aggressive in blocking fossil fuel projects, he faces a Congress that is hostile to climate legislation, and he has remained hesitant to take drastic steps to try to cut emissions on his own.
In a news briefing on Wednesday, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the new measures would build on what she called an “aggressive and ambitious climate agenda.”
“From Day 1, President Biden has treated climate change with the urgency it requires,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said, pointing to measures like the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate law in history.
Scientists and activists called the new measures important but insufficient.

Continue reading...