Wisconsin Shakes Off Climate Change Denial (Sort Of)

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources slipped into a kind of cyber denial about climate change late last year, scrubbing mention of human-caused global warming from its website in what critics of Gov. Scott Walker say is the latest strike in his ongoing war on science.

But here’s some good news for vexed Wisconsinites who think that if floods, droughts and forest fires are — as scientists generally agree they are — possible with increased frequency and intensity, it makes sense to plan for disaster: The state Division of Emergency Management agrees with you.

The federally required five-year climate change response plan posted on the agency’s website hedges slightly, acknowledging “some debate about the cause of climate change” but cites wide acceptance among scientists that the gradual warming of the planet is human-caused. The only debate, the agency said, is about the effects a changing climate will have in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

“Although it is widely accepted by the scientific community that the observed changes in global temperatures are the result of human actions, there is considerable uncertainty about the impacts these changes will ultimately have,” the agency wrote in the Wisconsin Hazard Mitigation Plan.

The Wisconsin DNR’s new official position of skepticism, a dramatic departure from the formerly bold assertion that human activity increases the heat-trapping greenhouse gasses that cause climate change, illustrates the partisan fights brewing around the issue in Wisconsin and nationally.

Environmental Legacy

Walker’s environmental legacy includes opening wetlands for development, loosening restrictions on iron mining and relaxing rules on phosphorous content in state waterways. He also targeted the DNR’s science and educational corps with steep budget cuts and a state renewable energy program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with elimination.

Walker has defended his policy, saying it balances environmental and industry needs for jobs growth, protecting both. But in a blistering special report, Scientific American said Walker has systematically worked to “reduce the role of science in environmental policymaking and to silence discussion of controversial subjects, including climate change, by state employees.”

The decision by Division of Emergency Management to include the human causes of climate change in its response plan is subtly challenging. Among several state officials signing the plan were the heads of the two agencies whose websites were scrubbed — DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp and Public Service Commission Chairwoman Ellen Nowak. The PSC website section on climate change was taken down last spring.

• See Also: Wisconsin Officially in Climate Change Denial: DNR Website

The Federal Emergency Management Agency didn’t require states to discuss the causes of climate change, only that they outline its potential effects and how disasters will be handled, FEMA spokeswoman Lori Getter told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The agency approved the Wisconsin plan in December without revision. “We will not be taking it out,” Getter told the newspaper.

Ally in President Trump

Nationally, Walker is one of the Republican Party’s brightest stars. A regular guy who tweets ham sandwich photos, his reputation is one of straightforward, approachable and folksy charm — the kind of guy you’d find raking leaves in the front yard and taking extra-wide swaths just to help out a neighbor.

His rise nationally was fueled by a fight with public-employee unions over collective bargaining rights in the early days of his governorship in 2010. At the zenith of a week-long protest in February 2011, as many as 100,000 activists occupied the Capitol grounds to protest a Walker proposal to cut collective bargaining rights. Walker faced a recall election in 2012 because of it but won by wider margin than he did in 2010 and crushed previous voter turnout records.

He was in the sweet spot in the early days of the 2016 campaign for the White House but lost traction and dropped out in September 2015. He later became a stanch supporter of Trump, and there was speculation after the election that Walker might be in line for a job to advise Trump’s administration on union strategy and jobs creation. Walker, the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association, told The Madison Statesman Journal he’s not interested.

But in Trump, Walker has an ally in resetting the discussion — or lack of it — on climate change.

In strikingly similar fashion, the White House website on climate change and global warming was taken down the same day Trump was sworn in as America’s 45th president. Added in its place was a page detailing an energy plan that, among other things, increases fossil fuel development and opens public lands and parks to drilling and mining.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons