Green Party: Hurricane Harvey Is Latest Alarm Bell on Climate Change

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 -- The Green Party issued the following news release:

Green Party leaders are calling Hurricane Harvey the latest alarm bell on global warming and said that President Trump and Congress must make solving the climate crisis the nation's top priority.

Greens expressed sympathy and solidarity with people in Houston and other parts of Texas and Louisiana who are suffering the effects of the hurricane and have lost homes, belongings, and loved ones.

"Along with providing relief to those affected by Harvey, we need a reversal of the U.S. political establishment's irresponsible direction on climate change. The only solution to the crisis is a Green solution," said Wesson Gaige, co-chair of the Green Party of Texas.

Texas Greens are urging support and donations to several frontline relief organizations: visit http://www.txgreens.org/news and http://www.colorlines.com/articles/how-donate-money-and-other-aid-communities-color-houston. The Green Party of the United States held its 2016 Presidential Nominating Convention at the University of Houston.

The Green Party listed talking points on Hurricane Harvey, climate change, and Green solutions:

* The severity of Hurricane Harvey and the devastation it wreaked in Houston must be recognized as an effect of climate change and an indication of similar and worse disasters to come. The planet's climate functions as a system: there are no isolated storms, all weather is affected by global warming. The Trump Administration's rejection of science is already having deadly consequences.

* Although rainfall from Harvey is unprecedented, 2017 is the city's third year with severe flooding. The disaster in Houston is one of many floods around the world that have displaced tens of millions this summer, with more than 1,000 deaths in South Asia.

* Lowering the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is urgently necessary, otherwise increasingly unstable weather and the rise of sea levels promise a future of Katrinas, Sandys, Harveys, mass population displacement, and global social breakdown in the coming decades. Working class communities, the poor, and people of color are facing the worst effects. The only solution is a rapid conversion from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.

* The Green Party has called for 100% renewable energy by 2030. To achieve this goal, Green candidates are promoting the Green New Deal, a plan to reorganize the U.S. economy, expand the public sphere, and create millions of new jobs in conservation and energy conversion.

* The Green Party has compared global warming to the global threat posed by the Axis powers at the beginning of World War II and has called for U.S. leadership in a worldwide alliance to end the crisis that includes peaceful cooperation with currently perceived enemies like Russia and Iran.

* ExxonMobil and other companies that knew about the reality of climate change placed oil refineries and other toxic sites in flood zones. In the wake of Harvey, their irresponsibility resulted in a toxic brew that is now spreading over hundreds of square miles and contaminating water tables. Two explosions and fume injuries were reported Thursday morning. The poor and people of color who live in affected areas are suffering the most harm. State and local governments in Texas have refused to undertake any preparation or enact regulation in the face of predictable emergencies.

* Only the Green Party is taking the climate crisis seriously. Greens said that a political field limited to two parties, both of which accept money and influence from the fossil-fuel industry, has become a threat to future generations.

Republicans, led by President Trump, continue to deny that the crisis exists and are dismantling environmental regulations and agencies, including the EPA, even as the need for these agencies and for regulation has grown. Republicans are likely to use Hurricane Harvey to call for more drilling and refineries.

The Green Party has condemned President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change.

Democrats acknowledge the crisis but won't take necessary action. The Obama Administration made sure that the Paris accords were not legally binding and President Obama boasted of increased oil production.

Hillary Clinton and her representatives kept carbon taxes, a ban on fracking, and other measures out of the 2016 Democratic Party platform.

Green Party leaders said that the "100 by '50 Act" (Senate Bill 987) introduced by Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Oreg.) and Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) was "too little, too late" in light of warnings from scientists about the severity of the crisis.