With recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene continuing, the issue of climate change got prime-time billing this week during the vice presidential debate.
“I wasn’t surprised,” said Ed Avol, a professor emeritus in the department of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine. “I was happy to hear that they brought it up, as opposed to not discuss[ing] it at all.”
Hurricane Helene swept through the southeast, making landfall in the Florida panhandle on September 26 before continuing north into Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. As of Thursday, the death toll has reached more than 200 people.
Both Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, after acknowledging the damage caused by the storm and sending their thoughts to those impacted, quickly shifted their comments to the importance of domestic energy production.
“I didn’t feel that either of the candidates had a thoughtful discussion about what we ought to be doing,” Avol said. “I think they had the right idea in terms of carbon emissions being an issue, but I think that they had the wrong idea in terms of the solution being the thrill for more oil.”
Luqman Abdi, a senior studying computer science and business, said he believes climate change has become a critical issue.
“We’re not doubling, but increasing [emissions], and also reaching that point, or that threshold, where irreversible damage is happening,” he said.
Abdi said the future of the climate worries him, and he hopes for more government involvement and policies to limit the intensity of natural disasters like Hurricane Helene.
“Our main point is to enact policies that can limit emissions,” Abdi said. “I feel like the response of the floods was… more of a community effort.”
Morgan Richmeier, a graduate student in the building science and heritage conservation programs, said she felt like the responsibility to address climate change has fallen more on individuals. She will vote for a third party candidate, Claudia de la Cruz.
“We need to build really strong people’s movements,” Richmeier said. “It’s times like this, we see that people coming together is what makes a difference.”
And while many were happy that a question about climate change was included at the top of the debate, others wondered if it would have been had the circumstances been different.
“If that hurricane had not occurred, would the climate change question have still been the third question?” asked Matthew E. Kahn, provost professor of economics and spatial sciences.
Despite being overlooked by officials on a national level, smaller actions for climate change are occurring. California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently launched a new initiative aimed at mobilizing Californians for climate action, providing some of the policies and community action that students and faculty were hoping for.