FEMA Strikes the Words 'Climate Change' From its Strategic Plan

Umair Irfan reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency's strategic plan for the years 2018 to 2022 does not include any reference to climate change.

The strategic plan instead uses tortured semantics while projecting more frequent and more expensive disasters in the coning years. "Disaster costs are expected to continue to increase due to rising natural hazard risk, decaying critical infrastructure, and economic pressures that limit investments in risk resilience,” according to the document."

Irfan places the decision to elide climate change from FEMA's strategic plan in the context of the megadisasters of 2017. Irfain says hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires, and tornadoe cost "at least" $306 billion in 2017.

The move is the latest Trump Administration controversy to follow from perhaps troubling choices of words. The FEMA strategic plan news follows shortly after news that the Department of Housing and Urban Development was planning to remove references to discrimination in its mission statement.