In western North Carolina. No end to the struggle. After Hurricane Helene's floodwaters isolated so many communities, many people forced to rely on each other for help. Antonia Hilton is there tonight. President Biden sending 500 more troops into North Carolina [00:00:16] as the reality of recovery sets in. Thousands still without running water, some loved ones still missing. North Carolina is still reeling from the devastation in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. But according to a recent investigative report by the Lever State, [00:00:33] Republicans in North Carolina have been wielding their power to make the state even less resilient in the face of natural disasters. Now, of course, there is a lot of blame to go around in regard to whether or not there's a decent enough response to the hurricane, [00:00:52] whether or not we are doing enough to respond to the very real climate emergency. But oftentimes guys, when we hear from the, you know, naysayers in regard to climate change or those who claim that individuals concerned about climate [00:01:08] change are doomers, they say, look, don't we've got human ingenuity and human ingenuity will find technological solutions to make towns more resilient so they can withstand the impact or the consequences of climate change. [00:01:25] Now, will our politicians actually invest in those mitigation efforts? It appears in North Carolina. No, that was not the case. So let's rewind back to the early 2000, because the lover report finds that the state actually implemented a number of policies meant to mitigate [00:01:43] the impact or effects of climate change. But then at around 2010, suddenly Republicans start getting elected into state legislature and they take over. They start to control the majority. And a lot of that progress on mitigation efforts kind of comes to a halt in the [00:02:00] years following the Republican takeover. The state legislature ended up gutting the budget for the state's environmental watchdog agency, which I think is a big mistake. Then last year, the Republicans in the state legislature passed two bills that [00:02:15] are worth talking about here, potentially endangering their own constituents. The first blocked home sheeting, inspections to determine whether homes can bear hurricane force winds. And the North Carolina Home Builders Association not a fan [00:02:32] of that potential regulation. It's a trade group representing home building companies. And they fought hard for the bill, arguing that upgrading housing to withstand hurricane force winds wasn't needed outside of coastal areas and would increase home prices. [00:02:49] The trade group, by the way, didn't just argue, for the bill. Basically, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbying to get their way. The Builders Association spent more than $346,000 lobbying state lawmakers in 2023, [00:03:05] and has given more than $28,000 in campaign donations to State Representative Mark Brody, the bill's author, throughout his career, according to emails obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute, the environmental watchdog group, via a records request. Request. [00:03:21] The lobbying group also helped write the bill, so again, they blocked the home sheathing inspections regulation, essentially. And so there's more where that came from. But again, I want to reiterate those who are arguing, [00:03:37] especially those on the right who argue we don't have to worry about climate change because new technological advances can help us mitigate the impact of climate change. They should be really upset at this, but I'm not hearing anything. Yeah. So look, guys, there's two corruption stories here. [00:03:52] Number one is what Anna just explained to you guys that of course they're going to want cut costs. They don't want extra regulations. So when you hear deregulation spouted by Republicans over and over again, oh, so we're just, you know, freeing these companies. They're not human beings. [00:04:08] They don't need to be freed from all rules, regulations and laws. What they're doing is they're saying, take more safety risks. It's okay. You can take it sometimes with your employees. We don't need more safety regulations in the workplace, sometimes with local communities and sometimes here at large with your [00:04:25] homes and, and natural disasters. So when you see, oh my God, I've had this massive issue and it turns out the government could have protected me but didn't understand. That's deregulation. That's what cost you. Okay, so there's only propaganda against regulation. [00:04:42] All right. In fact, the word regulation is misleading. All regulation means is laws. Do you want more laws or less laws. Well doesn't that depend. So for either side the left or the right. To say no more. Regulation is always the answer. Or less regulation is always the answer. That literally makes no sense. [00:04:59] It depends on the task at hand, and protecting you from natural disasters is a pretty important task. Now that gets to the much larger corruption, which is the oil companies, the fossil fuel companies that know that climate change was going to take these category threes and turn them into fours and fives. Take the ones and turn them into threes, make them more extreme. [00:05:16] They've known since the 1970s. They wrote it down themselves. They did their own research 70s and 80s. They knew we now have the internal numbers. They knew it for a fact. But we also have the memos on them saying, hey, what if we buy off the politicians? We'll be able to create doubt and we'll do think tanks and other things so that we [00:05:33] confuse at least half the population into thinking it might not be a problem at all. By the time their house is wiped away and their family members are dead, and we stick them with the bill, they'll be so confused as to who's at fault. The reality is, this is a byproduct of their the consumer good [00:05:49] that they are producing. Do we need some sort of energy to power the whole world? Of course, in the short term it is fossil fuel. A part of that. Very, very likely. Do we need to eventually phase it out so we don't have hurricanes wiping us out, [00:06:06] let alone all the other problems that come with it? Yes. How do we phase them out? Is the real question, not whether we should go. You know what? No big deal. And when it wipes away your family in Georgia or North Carolina, ExxonMobil that already took home trillions of dollars, their executives, shareholders, etc. [00:06:22] And get subsidies from us shouldn't pay any of the costs of their product. Instead, you should pay it and your family should pay it. Exactly. And that's what's unacceptable. Yeah. And look, a lot of my critique or criticism toward, efforts to combat climate change center on the fact that most of the onus, [00:06:41] most of the pressure has been placed on individual Americans rather than industry. And that bothers me, because individual Americans have been paying the consequences for something that they barely contributed to. When you consider how much you know, fossil fuel companies have contributed [00:06:59] to the rapidly warming climate, and so things like EV mandates do get under my skin a little bit, because it's this assumption that people are going to be able to just willy nilly afford EVs. A lot of Americans are not driving like brand new cars or leasing brand new cars [00:07:15] every three years or five years. This is an expensive thing to to have to worry about, and I just think there needs to be more support for Americans if they're going to implement these types of mandates. But let's get to the second bill that the lever wanted to draw some attention to. So the second bill opened 2.5 million acres of North Carolina wetlands [00:07:35] for development. Now, unsurprisingly, that bill was backed by the Builders Association because, again, it allows for development on the wetlands. Now, scientists say wetlands are essential for absorbing water in storm surges like [00:07:51] the one that accompanied Hurricane Helene. Some research suggests that a single acre of wetlands, about one foot deep, can absorb up to 330,000 gallons of water, enough to flood about 13 homes downstream with several feet of water. [00:08:08] And these problems are only going to get worse because, you know, global warming is going to continue to intensify. And so, as the lever notes, using increasingly precise attribution, science experts are already finding evidence that climate change [00:08:25] fueled Helene's destruction, including that warmer ocean temperatures likely exacerbated the storm's rain. The most recent national climate assessment, completed last year, found that the amount of precipitation in the most intense rainstorms [00:08:40] has increased 37% in the southeast since 1958, so that's real data. Those are real numbers. And obviously you have ordinary people suffering the consequences. And it is devastating. And it's going to continue to get more and more expensive, not just for them [00:08:57] but also for American taxpayers overall, as we have to, you know, beef up resources for governmental organizations like FEMA. Yeah. So, guys, whenever you hear corporations talking about freedom, understand that means they're here to screw you. [00:09:13] It has nothing to do with your freedom. So when we show you these numbers that are verified by scientists, I know that Republicans sometimes have turned the word scientists and the career of science as like a dirty word. Like, People that study facts to find out what's true. [00:09:31] Blue. Right? But they didn't devote. Like none of these guys are getting rich off this. They didn't devote their lives to science because they wanted to screw you over. It's because they really care about things that are true. And so when you see all the numbers on how the weather is or the climate is [00:09:48] getting significantly worse, and then you see the impact with your own eyes. Understand that the people that are bringing you the facts are the ones that are telling you the truth. Not the corporations who stand to make billions of dollars from your inaction. [00:10:04] And those guys, by the way, if you don't know, we give the oil companies about $30 billion in subsidies every single year. That's more than we give to Israel. And it's every single year. And they're the most. I mean, and then we talk about how Israel has paid family leave [00:10:19] and universal health care, and we don't. Why are we giving them money? Well, we don't have any of those things. And ExxonMobil, we're giving them $30 billion when they're the most profitable companies in the world. So what are we doing here? So as they're destroying the planet, they're not only that. The part that, like, bothers me, not just as an American citizen, [00:10:38] but as a capitalist, is they get to take all of their costs and go, here, America, You deal with it here. Citizens of the world, you bunch of suckers. We'll just buy off you. Yeah, we'll just buy off your politicians, both Republicans and Democrats. Well, buy the Democrats a little less than the Republicans [00:10:53] a little bit more in this case. And Trump will buy the most. So he'll go around puppeting our talking points. Drill baby drill. Drill baby drill. So we'll buy those guys off and then half of you will be confused. Even though the science is absolutely clear, you'll do nothing. And we'll get to put all our costs on you. And every once in a while your house will get wiped away. [00:11:10] But it doesn't matter because you and the taxpayers have to foot the bill. Never. ExxonMobil. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. [00:11:29] But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. 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