Two United States senators are taking heat for proposing a $200 million infrastructure bond issue to fund climate change adaptation, in the form of seawalls, desalination systems, and drought resistance programs.
The Climate Change Adapt America Bond Act, introduced last week by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) “would leverage public interest to fend off the climate menace, modeled after the U.S. War Bonds program from World War II,” Grist reports.
“Millions of Americans want to help fight climate change,” Boxer tweeted. “Climate Change Bonds will tap into their patriotism!”
But Climate Mobilization Director Margaret Klein Salamon sees the bill as “a defeatist strategy—as if war bonds were sold to Americans so they could better adapt to Nazi rule rather than actually attempt to win the war.” She added that the $200 million would be a drop in the bucket compared to the $185 billion in war bonds that Americans bought during the Second World War. In today’s dollars, that would be more than $2 trillion, Grist notes.
