Critics took to social media to rip President Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm for suggesting that climate change may have played a role in the collapse of a condominium complex in Miami.
“There’s nothing that can’t be blamed on climate change,” National Review editor Rich Lowry said in a tweet.
There’s nothing that can’t be blamed on climate change https://t.co/0XbP9dP608
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) June 29, 2021
“Yes, a global climate phenomenon affected a single swimming pool and parking garage but didn’t affect neighboring structures,” said national security professional Alex Plitsas.
“Absolutely ghoulish,” wrote @bonchieredstate.
“Climate change may or may not had something to do with the strikes in Syria,” wrote another person.
“I thought it was systemic racism,” said yet another.
Granholm was asked during a Tuesday interview on CNN whether she thought climate change could have contributed to the collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside. Four more bodies were found in the rubble, a fire official told The Associated Press on Wednesday, raising the death toll in the disaster to 16 people. Nearly 150 people are still missing.
“Obviously, we don’t know fully, but we do know that the seas are rising. We know that we’re losing inches and inches of beaches, not just in Florida but all around,” Granholm said. “Michigan, where I’m from, we’ve seen the loss of beaches because the waters are rising, so this is a phenomenon that will continue.”
“We’ll have to wait to see what the analysis is for this building, but the issue about resiliency and making sure we adapt to this changing climate, that’s going to mean levees need to be built, sea walls need to be built, infrastructure needs to be built,” Granholm said.
There’s so much investment that we need to do to protect ourselves from climate change but also to address it and mitigate it,” she continued. “Hopefully these infrastructure bills, when taken together, will make a huge step and allow America to lead again.”
But a professor who researches the beaches in South Florida told the Agence France-Presse that it is unlikely climate change alone was behind the collapse, according to The New York Post.
“I doubt that that was an issue here,” said Stephen Leatherman, a Florida International University professor.
Said the Post:
Rather, a lack of reinforcement in the doomed structure’s construction, or perhaps water damage that eventually compromised its foundations, are more likely culprits, Leatherman told the news outlet. “Big thing they worry about here are hurricanes, beach erosion, flooding, all those issues. But the collapse of a building is new. We haven’t ever seen this before, particularly a high-rise building,” he said.
Leatherman also questioned whether contractors installed enough rebar to support the concrete tower, and also the quality of the sand needed to make the concrete. A 2018 engineer’s report found “major structural damage” in the complex, extending to the concrete slab under the pool deck and the concrete beams and columns in the underground garage.