Climate Change Task Force Takes on Nation's Extreme Weather
Broad ideas for tackling global warming and related natural disasters were discussed at Thursday's closed-door meeting of President Obama's Climate Change Task Force in downtown Los Angeles.
White House officials joined state and local leaders, including Gov. Jerry Brown and Mayor Eric Garcetti, to develop strategies for combating the increasingly extreme weather that's racking the country.
"Climate change may seem abstract," said Garcetti, "but people are definitely feeling the effects of flooding, fires, and drought."
At a press conference following the meeting, Brown called climate preparedness a "moral obligation" for all Americans.
"We're going into what will be a tsunami of climate change," Brown added.
The task force, which has only met once before, offered little by way of concrete plans. Their official hashtag is #ActOnClimate.
Cliff Boule, an environmental advocate who said the drought is exacerbating his ill health, criticized the generic bureaucractic response to such a grievous problem.
"We need more than a task force," Boule said.
The task force meeting comes one month after Gov. Brown declared a state-of-emergency because of the drought. Several years of low rainfall have left central California parched and severely reduced the security of the state's water supply.
