Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have starkly different track records on climate change. To shed light on the two candidates’ climate agendas, we sorted through their campaign materials and recent statements on the campaign trail.
Experts say people cannot create or meaningfully alter hurricanes through existing weather modification techniques. That has not stopped a deluge of social media posts baselessly claiming or implying that Hurricanes Helene and Milton were intentionally created, steered or otherwise controlled by someone.
Former President Donald Trump, who has famously called climate change a “hoax” for many years, hasn’t used the word lately with respect to climate change. But he still clings to some similar arguments, and other claims he makes about climate change haven’t changed much over the years.
Multiple lines of evidence, including measurements of a variety of planetary indicators, show that climate change is happening and is caused primarily by human activity. As the concentration of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere has increased — much of it from burning fossil fuels — land and ocean temperatures have risen, along with sea levels, while sea and land ice have declined.
The changes are consistent with the basic physics of the greenhouse effect that have been understood since the mid-1800s and map to what is expected from human activity.