Seattle Mayor Ed Murray (D) said in an interview Saturday that the move to dissolve the committee represents an example of the president not leading, and the president stepping away from reality. An official from Seattle Public Utilities has been serving on the panel; with its disbanding, Murray said it would now be more difficult for cities to participate in the climate assessment. On climate change, Trump has left us all individually to figure it out.
Richard Wright, the past chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate, has been working with the committee to convey the importance of detailed climate projections in next years assessment. The society establishes guidelines that form the basis of building codes across the country, and these are based on a historical record that may no longer be an accurate predictor of future weather extremes.
We need to work on updating our standards with good estimates on what future weather and climate extremes will be, Wright said Saturday. I think its going to be a serious handicap for us that the advisory committee is not functional.
