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U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) says the extreme heat and destructive wildfires in the Pacific Northwest are grabbing the attention of his colleagues who are otherwise skeptical that the planet is warming.
“I’m not going to tell people who are paying attention to Willamette Week that we’ve got everybody there and it’s a kumbaya moment,” Wyden says. “But when it’s 109 degrees [in Portland], you bet it’s getting senators’ attention.”
Wyden discussed the 116-degree heat storm with the Dive podcast this week, in an interview focused on climate change and what, if anything, Congress can do to arrest it. Wyden argued that fighting the effects of global warming might become the public works project that could unite an otherwise polarized nation. (He’s introduced a bill for a 21st Century Conservation Corps to fight wildfires across the West.)
Here are a few of our questions and his answers.
WW: How much of your time is divided between spending time on the current issues of climate change like forest fire containment versus enacting change that will improve the lives of our grandkids?
Ron Wyden: It’s striking because I’ve always felt that the challenge was to put your foot in both camps.
I’d love to be able to blame you or Trump or any other elected official for climate change. But my fear is that you can pass whatever bills you want, as long as I still want to eat meat and drive my car, climate change won’t go away.
There is no question that no one piece of legislation is going to be a panacea. But I do think if you’re talking about changing behavior—which is what you’re touching on—[that] is what legislators have the chance to effect. Taxes…carbon pricing…and clean energy standards.
So are you booking your ticket to Mars?
No.
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