Biggest Temperature Increases Projected in States that Oppose Climate Bill

States that will see the highest temperature increases due to climate change also overwhelmingly oppose a federal bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

By 2100, the biggest temperature spikes in the United States will be felt in the Midwestern states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Oklahoma, according to a report released this week by The Nature Conservancy. Each state will see temperatures rise at least ten degrees–up to twice the increase predicted in more liberal coastal states. The five hard-hit Midwestern states have only three Democratic senators among them; no Republicans in the region are expected to support a cap and trade bill. Climate change heat map from climatewizard.org

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The Midwest is set to see the mercury rise because it’s isolated from cooling ocean currents that will blunt the effects of a warming climate in other parts of the United States. In President Obama’s home state, Hawaii, for example, temperatures will increase only 4.9 degrees. The temperature rankings come from an interactive heat map published by the Nature Conservancy this week on the website Climatewizard.org.

In a narrow sense, one could argue that the GOP is looking out for the Midwest’s best interests; higher temperatures may ultimately be a boon to chilly states such as South Dakota. But adapting to a warmer climate could also prove painful. Temperature increases will likely shift farming zones, exacerbate outbreaks of pests, and tax the region’s underground aquifers.

The one Midwestern state that would probably be most screwed over by warming is also the one inhabited by the Senate’s leading climate change skeptic, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma. He has called global warming a “hoax,”  trumpeted a fake EPA scandal involving a so-called climate whistleblower, and parroted the Chamber of Commerce’s call for a “Scopes Monkey Trial” on the evidence for climate change.  And yet temperatures in Oklahoma are set to rise 9.9 degrees by the end of the century. That wouldn’t be so bad, except it means that Oklahoma City will experience 103-degree summers. Inhofe may keep alive the old Texas maxim about why the Lone Star State doesn’t slip into the Gulf of Mexico: Because Oklahoma sucks.