The sweltering Summer of 2023 has come to a close. According to NASA and the World Meteorological Organization, it was Earth’s hottest summer on record, with July and August being the two hottest months ever recorded. Our warming climate has moved well beyond the era of minor temperature fluctuations and scientific modeling, it is slapping us in the face by smashing records and adversely affecting people’s lives.

Here in the U.S., more than a dozen cities experienced their hottest summer ever. These include Pensacola, Sarasota and Key West, Florida; Mobile, Alabama; Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Del Rio, El Paso, San Antonio and Victoria, Texas; and Roswell, New Mexico.

We are seeing real impacts on our health, on our economy and cost of living, and on our water and food supplies. The impacts of climate change are impossible to ignore, and its time for conservatives to get more engaged in crafting real solutions.

Climate change is driven by the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the Earth’s atmosphere, gases that act like a blanket to trap more the sun’s heat rather than allowing it to escape back into space. That extra heat not only results in sweltering heatwaves, it affects weather patterns, intensifies storms, expands the range of destructive or dangerous pests, and fuels wildfires.

Florida, Arizona, California

We have witnessed some record-breaking heat that put all previous summers to shame. NASA’s temperature data show that this summer’s record heat was not just a small blip on the radar. Average temperatures across the country during these months reached levels we’ve never seen before, bringing with them a multitude of challenges for both the environment and our well-being. Florida, Arizona, and California are just a few states to name that faced significant challenges.

Florida, known for its sunny and humid climate, felt the full force of the summer heatwave. With average temperatures consistently exceeding 90°F and the heat index well above 100°F, High humidity levels made it even more oppressive, increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses.

Florida’s environment has taken quite a hit too. The long-lasting heat and drought brought more wildfires, disrupted our freshwater supplies, and severely damaged our agriculture industry. And the craziness didn’t stop there. Ocean water in the Gulf of Mexico simmered to a record—and hot tub like—104°F. The state’s coastal areas are also dealing with more frequent and worse storm damage thanks to rising sea levels and stronger storms.

That is a lot of stress on the Sunshine State’s economy, its natural ecosystems, and the wallets of every Floridian.

In Arizona, where hot summers are the norm, this past summer shattered previous records. The state’s residents had never before experienced anything like it.

Phoenix had the hottest single month of any U.S. city, with every day of July at or exceeding 110°F. In fact, Phoenix had 55 days over 110°F, with in the temps regularly above 115°F. The city even hit a scorching 120°F on some days. That’s seriously intense heat, and it’s no joke – it can be life-threatening. Local authorities had to step in and issue heat advisories to make sure everyone stayed safe.

Arizona’s record-breaking summer heat is also further stressing the state’s water supply by increasing the demand for water and by causing greater evaporation from Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The region’s decades long drought and reduced snowpack in the Rocky Mountains have already reduced the flow of the Colorado River, which Arizona and several other Western States depend on, to a tiny fraction of what it is supposed to be.

Record heat also hit other parts of the country, including Texas, California, Colorado, Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, and North Carolina.

In Canada, heat and drought contributed to a hellish and record shattering wildfire outbreak of more than 6,500 fires burning more than 25 million acres. The massive amount of smoke from those fires drifted over large sections of the U.S. Resulting in code red air quality alerts and forcing outdoor events indoors.

The smoke was so thick in New York City that a Yankees game was postponed and flights in and out of LaGuardia were cancelled. In Philadelphia, a Phillies game was and all outdoor school field trips were cancelled. Concerts and plays from Wisconsin to Washington, D.C. were cancelled as well. In Northern Virginia the smoky air forced the state high school lacrosse semi-finals indoors.

Flashing Red

The summer of 2023 isn’t some one-off thing; it’s a giant WARNING sign flashing red about the future impacts of climate change. While some of this unfortunately baked in due to our failure to head the warnings of wise conservative leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, it’s not too late to reduce GHG emissions and make things better for our children and grandchildren.

Like President Reagan said, “the preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge; it’s common sense.” We conservatives have to get more involved in pushing for solutions. Leaving up to the left over the past few decades hasn’t really moved the ball very far. It’s time for us to leverage the power of the free market in this challenge to reduce GHG emissions.

Making that happen is up to you. Our decision makers have to feel pressure from the constituents they care most about. President Reagan summed up our obligation perfectly when he, speaking about our natural environment, said, “This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.”

Let’s not let them down.

When we extract oil and coal from the earth and burn it in ever increasing quantities, we disturb that natural balance by releasing that stored carbon from bygone eras back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide over much shorter time scales than would naturally occur. That upsets the carbon balance in the atmosphere, causing excess carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere, where it begins to trap too much of the earth’s heat.

Does it not then stand to reason that God, after designing the earth’s processes to sequester excess carbon and keep our atmosphere’s chemistry in balance, would prefer that we respect His creation and find better ways to heat our homes and power our cars than using huge amounts of oil and coal?

A refrain I sometimes hear from fellow Christians, often from those who take their cues from oil and coal interests, is “God wouldn’t have put coal and oil in the ground if he didn’t want us to use them.” That presumptuous reasoning overlooks the possibly that God might have put those hydrocarbons exactly where he wanted them to stay.

At 412 parts per million (ppm), the carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere is the highest in human history—driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. We are truly in unchartered territory, and as the latest reports from the NASA, IPCC and top climate scientists from around the globe show, the impacts are already evident and getting worse.
One no longer has to rely on climate modeling and predictions. We can all see and feel the changes for ourselves…hotter summers, heavier downpours, less snowpack, more wildfires, stronger hurricanes, the list could go on.

Globally, July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded, with records going back 140 years. In fact, nine of the past 10 hottest Julys have occurred since 2005. This past September also tied with 2015 as the hottest September on record.

A byproduct of that warm air is more moisture in the atmosphere. January through September of 2019 was also the wettest such period (YTD) ever recorded.

These changes are taking a toll on our health, our livelihood, and our property. Moreover, it is stressing our nation’s infrastructure, affecting insurance premiums, and requiring more money for disaster assistance. That impacts our wallets and our country’s fiscal health.

By acting contrary to God’s design, we are putting at risk the very systems and processes that He put in place to sustain life.

Those who do not believe burning fossil fuels is altering our climate often peddle the notion that the earth was created on such a grand and complex scale, it is impossible for humankind to mess it up. In other words, we can do anything we want without serious consequence.

Does that sound like something God would say? To me, it sounds more like something the snake from the Garden of Eden would say.

Is there any aspect of our spiritual or physical life where our actions are without consequence? Everything we do has consequences—and the earth’s life-sustaining ecology was not designed to be immune from our actions and choices.

As Adam and Eve quickly discovered after giving into temptation, with knowledge comes responsibility.

With better understanding—often through scientific observation—of how God has designed the earth to function and support life, comes an even greater obligation to respect His design and live within it.

And as we consider the ever-mounting evidence that our actions are causing unprecedented harm to—as President Ronald Reagan liked to say—“this magical planet that God gave us,” it is a great time to reflect upon our obligation to be good stewards of His creation.

We would also do well to consider the words of conservative author and poet T.S. Eliot. He pointed out that, “Religion, as distinguished from modern paganism, implies a life in conformity with nature,” and then wisely concluded:

”A wrong attitude towards nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude towards God.”