The deadly Texas floods have receded, leaving lost and shattered lives. U.S. President Donald Trump tells us not to politicize the moment, with spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt calling the floods “an act of God,” meaning no one is responsible. But because the floods and the climate disasters that will follow them make the costs heart-wrenchingly visible, they give us the chance to talk about root causes and the choices we face. If we don’t have these conversations, these teachable moments will quickly fade.

Democratic pushback has focused mostly on cutbacks to the National Weather Service andFederal Emergency Management Agency, leaving critical offices understaffed and undermining the ability to plan. But the pushback has focused less on climate change, even as, the day before the floods, the Republicans paid for massive tax breaks for the wealthiest in part by slashing federal support for wind, solar, battery, electric vehicles,, energy efficiency, and other investments that gave us a chance to join China and Europe in leading the technologies of the future. So we need to talk about the choices presented to us by this tragedy—and all the others that will come.

When Democrats have held power, they’ve raised these issues far too little. No American legislation did more to fight climate change than former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, but the new Republican bill mostly gutted it. And Biden was largely quiet in the face of a succession of epic climate disasters, from the fires that destroyed the Maui town of Lahaina and the Colorado town of Superior, to the North Carolina floods on the eve of the election. He did say Hurricane Ida highlighted the “climate crisis.” But the administration never created a sustained conversation. Former Vice President Kamala Harris also stayed mostly silent, and when climate was raised late in her single presidential debate, she discussed it for only a minute and then moved on. So although the administration addressed the issue in groundbreaking ways, they did far too little to bring it to greater public salience. That led to it receding further in perceived urgency for a public that knows climate change is real but hasn’t made it a priority.

Imagine if Biden, Harris, or other key Democrats had gone to the sites of these disasters and not just........

© Common Dreams