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Oct. 22, 2019 |  By: Keegan Cooper

Iowa greatly affected by climate change

In recent years, Iowa has experienced record level flooding, droughts, and rising temperatures attributed to climate change. At the same time, the Trump Administration is rolling back standards that protect clean air and water.

Antonia Herzog with Physicians for Social Responsibility says the Obama-era Clean Power Plan was making a significant difference.

"We have to deploy more clean energy resources.  We have to reduce energy we use.  The Clean Power Plan had put us on the right path and overturning it is sending us completely in the wrong direction."

Iowa had the wettest year on record in 2019 and, despite being a small state, has had 43 presidentially declared disasters in the past thirty years. Maureen McCue is the coordinator for Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility and says the state has nearly twenty thousand energy-efficiency jobs, including wind energy and solar employees. She says 90 percent of Iowans believe it's important to promote the state's clean-energy sources.

"Fisherpeople can't fish because there's so much algae.  Recreational uses are being closed down because the beaches have so much algae.  We are not protecting our water ways."

Health impacts attributed to climate change include increased rates of asthma, which in Iowa affects 42-thousand children and 220-thousand adults.