Deadly silence: The world can’t afford to ignore climate change much longer

Our government could do something about climate change, but it refuses. In fact, most elected leaders and political candidates don’t even talk about it.

As the fossil-fuel industry increasingly allied itself with Republicans to block climate action over the decades, Democrats became the party more willing to address it. But now, even many Democrats have gone quiet. As the November midterms approach, think tanks and consultants are advising them to avoid the topic global warming because “it is not a priority for voters.”  

The silence is called “climate hushing,” the strategic choice to avoid talking about global warming to avoid political backlash, polarization or economic anxiety. In other words, our elected leaders should avoid mentioning the huge elephant in the room, even as it gets more dangerous.  

Hardly an evening newscast goes by today without reports of major weather disasters and millions of Americans under threat of fire, flood, killer heat or other calamity. Community after community is turned to ash by wildfires, blown into rubble by tornadoes or washed away in flash floods. 

Last year, major weather disasters struck the U.S. every 10 days, on average. Billion-dollar disasters have occurred every 16 days on average over the last decade, compared to every 82 days in the 1980s. And those figures count only the most destructive disasters — thousands of smaller floods, fires, storms and other extreme-weather events never make the billion-dollar list, although they can be catastrophic to the families and communities they strike. 

The numbers don’t convey the profound human costs: injury and........

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