The dead and wounded have not even been found or cleared from the rubble of the terrible Surfside condo collapse in Florida, and already leftists are trying to use the tragedy to blame global warming.

The latest instance: Michigan's former governor, Jennifer Granholm, who's now serving as Joe Biden's energy secretary:

"Given what we know about the changing climate, given that you've seen an increase in so called extraordinary tides, and the impact that that can have in areas like south Florida, do you think that climate would have played a role in that building's collapse?" [CNN] anchor Erica Hill asked. The segment was accompanied by the chyron, "Could Climate Crisis Have Contributed to Building Collapse?"

"Well, obviously we don't know fully," Granholm replied.

"We know that we're losing inches and inches of beach — not just in Florida, but all around," Granholm said.

The secretary said she needed to wait to see the analysis of the current investigation into the building collapse, but said that we should "adapt" to and "protect ourselves" from the consequences of a changing climate. One possible solution, she suggested, was to pass President Biden's infrastructure bills.

This was disgusting political opportunism played off the backs of the150-plus people who still lie buried in the tons of rubble.  You'd think Granholm might have some kind of compassion for task at hand and maybe talk about the rescue and recovery operation, but nooo, she's off spouting Joe's political priorities, touting his infrastructure plan, and talking about saving the Earth when it's Surfside's condo survivors who need saving, not the entire planet.  She's basically using those Surfside deaths as a "news hook" to promote the political ends she wants to promote and too bad about condo.

That's not the only vile political opportunism, either.

Right after the collapse, the global warmers in the press got busy — like, immediately.  Here's the Washington Post in a piece dated June 25:

Investigators are just beginning to try to unravel what caused the Champlain Towers South to collapse into a heap of rubble, leaving at least 159 people missing as of Friday. Experts on sea-level rise and climate change caution that it is too soon to speculate whether rising seas helped destabilize the oceanfront structure. The 40-year-old building was relatively new compared with others on its stretch of beach in the town of Surfside.

But it is already clear that South Florida has been on the front lines of sea-level rise and that the effects of climate change on the infrastructure of the region — from septic systems to aquifers to shoreline erosion — will be a management problem for years.

And they are still at it:

Did climate change play a role in the deadly collapse of a Miami-area condominium last week?

Experts say it's too soon to tell. At least one factor has come up as a possibility — the corrosive impact of rising sea levels — but other variables have little to do with global warming.

A more complete answer is expected in the next several months. That's when investigators plan to finish their inquiry into the Champlain Towers South disaster, which killed at least 11 people and left more than 150 missing.

In the meantime, scientists said the danger of climate change should not be underestimated. Between sea-level rise and the growing intensity of hurricanes, global warming looms as the biggest threat to Miami and other coastal communities.

These are far from the only examples of it.  And notice that little couching self-protection in "it's too soon to tell" sold with every climate-change gong-beat.  They all do that, because they know they don't know what they are talking about.  The dreamy-beamy stuff about global warming is a complete nuisance factor to what the survivors are owed, amounting to political opportunism if not a quest for more government power.

The Surfside collapse of a huge tower of people in just seconds was a serious, sad, mass-casualty event that affected a single building in a mass of coastal condos.  It had nothing to do with climate because if it did, all of the condos would have collapsed.  It simply deserves serious answers.

The investigative work going on is uncovering genuine problems that deserve attention, yet all of this global warming claptrap is obscuring the issue.

Thus far, we have learned that there was a 2018 structural engineer's report warning of serious structural problems related to leaking water around the pool deck weakening the cement in the edifice. 

There is evidence the steel sticks inside the cement were rusted and corroded.  An even more recent inspection noted cracks in the cement on the lower levels.

There also was a condo association that apparently blanched at the size of the repair bill and quite possibly did nothing as a result.

There was an eyewitness report of sinkhole below the collapsed pool structure, suggesting that there may have been unknown or maybe ignored foundational problems.

The Miami Herald noted that much of the 1980s construction that went on in the Miami area during the 1980s was shoddy and substandard.

All of these things are worthy topics for investigators to investigate.

But this doesn't stop the left, which is trying to hang the whole incomprehensible thing on global warming in order to lobby voters into giving the government more money and power.  That's what this nonsense is really about.  Heaven help us if these people ever consolidate power.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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