Scientists warn severe storms like the one that battered the Maine coast Wednesday will become more frequent as human-caused climate change warms the planet.
And as Mainers mopped up from the storm Thursday, U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine called for more aggressive climate action.
King addressed Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk in a hearing of the Senate Energy And Natural Resources Committee.
“We are fiddling while the planet burns, and people are going to look back and say, ‘Yes, you addressed it, but you didn’t really address it with a sufficient sense of urgency.’ And I think we’ve got to talk about the impact of the climate crisis on us,” he said.
King urged Turk to consider the cost to taxpayers of not moving more aggressively. And he highlighted the trend toward electric vehicles, as supported by the Inflation Reduction Act, as a step in the right direction.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.