OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden cannot help himself, even in a moment of crisis and devastation for Americans, he has to hit his talking points.
On Saturday, after catastrophic tornadoes wreaked havoc on a large swath of America, after a minimum of 84 Americans lays dead as the result of 30 or more tornadoes, and as countless families work to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on, the president had to make it about climate change.
“All that I know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impact as a consequence of the warming of the planet and the climate change,” the president said. “The specific impact on these specific storms, I can’t say at this point. I’m going to be asking the EPA and others to take a look.”
For reference, the tornadoes occurred in an area of the nation known as “tornado alley,” which got its nickname not because it does not have frequent tornadoes.
“We’re as prepared as any government has ever been for these disasters. What warning was there, was it strong enough and was it heeded? You asked me about whether or not we were gonna be able to do. Part of it is acknowledging that the likelihood of fewer weather catastrophes, absent a continued movement on dealing with global warming, is just not gonna happen,” he said.
“We always had wildfires, but who in God’s name thought we’d see more territory burned to the ground larger than the state of New Jersey,” he said. “We have to act, but the first and most urgent piece here is we have to save anyone who’s still alive, we have to care for them and we have to care for those families.”
"The fact is that we all know everything is more intense when the climate is warming. Everything," President Biden said when asked if climate change played a factor in the intensity of the tornadoes that hit the central U.S. pic.twitter.com/Wzqfh7BGbR
— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 11, 2021
Again, for reference, the wildfires the president is referring to happened in an area of the West that has had wildfires every year for centuries.
“As we speak, wives, fathers, and mothers are finding out their loved ones aren’t ever coming home again in Kentucky. Joe Biden thinks it’s an opportunity to push climate change legislation. I keep telling you, you’re facing monsters. Monsters,” conservative Jesse Kelly said.
As we speak, wives, fathers, and mothers are finding out their loved ones aren’t ever coming home again in Kentucky.
Joe Biden thinks it’s an opportunity to push climate change legislation.
I keep telling you, you’re facing monsters. Monsters.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) December 11, 2021
“It’s truly diabolical that Biden used a natural disaster to push the climate change agenda,” another Twitter user said.
It’s truly diabolical that Biden used a natural disaster to push the climate change agenda.
Sickening. pic.twitter.com/BlHA8KQWJd
— Merissa Hansen 🇺🇸 (@MerissaHansen17) December 11, 2021
That is not to say that this group of tornadoes was not historic, because it was, and the devastation left will take a long time to recover from.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky described that historic nature of the storms in remarks to the press.
“This will be, I believe, the deadliest tornado system to ever run through Kentucky,” he said. “It is indescribable. The level of devastation is unlike anything I have ever seen.”
The Daily Mail reported.
The early casualty estimates suggest that the tragedy is the deadliest tornado strike in Kentucky in more than a century, on a scale last seen in 1890 when twisters killed 76 in the Louisville area.
One tornado among the dozens that struck is estimated to have a damage path of more than 200 miles, which would approach or exceed the all-time global record.
The epicenter of the destruction was the town of Mayfield, a small city of about 10,000 people in the far western part of Kentucky, where the Bluegrass State borders Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas. Entire blocks were flattened, with the courthouse tower shredded, houses and buildings ripped apart, and twisted metal, shattered tree limbs and bricks scattered across streets.
The roof of a candle factory collapsed in Mayfield, resulting in ‘mass casualties’ according to Beshear. He said 110 people were working in the factory, and that only 40 had been rescued alive from the rubble as of midday Saturday.
“We’re going to lose a lot of lives at that facility. I pray that there will be another rescue, another one or two, but it’s a very dire situation at this point,” the governor said.
The White said that, “The President has directed that Federal resources be surged immediately to the locations where there is the greatest need to alleviate suffering from the devastating consequences of these storms.”
