Hello, and welcome back to State of Emergency. My name is Zoya Teirstein. We’ve heard it time and again: Despite what the science says, climate change does not rank high among Americans’ priorities in the ballot box. When we launched this series in August, however, we made the case that climate disasters can influence voting and elections — not just locally, but nationally. We’ve just seen proof of that in Hurricane Helene.
Two weeks ago, the Category 4 storm carved a deadly path through the U.S. Southeast — the first time in American history that a major disaster has hit two swing states, Georgia and North Carolina, just weeks ahead of a presidential election.
“Every tinfoil hat out there that says the government controls the weather now feels validated because Marjorie Taylor Greene said so, too.”
— Rachel Goldwasser, Southern Poverty Law CenterOn social media and on trips to the disaster zone, former President Donald Trump has made one bogus claim after another about the federal response to the storm, falsely alleging that President Joe Biden has been ignoring federal aid requests from Georgia’s Repub... Read more
