My column today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is about climate change.

Published: August 11, 2025

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SPECIAL TO THE POST-GAZETTE

Republicans, learn from the relentless summer of 2025

BY BRUCE LEDEWITZ

At 5:15 a.m., on July 25, I came back inside the house from walking the dogs and asked Alexa for the temperature. The calm female voice responded, “In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the current temperature is 76 degrees.” In Pittsburgh. Not the Gulf Coast.

This summer has been relentlessly hot. From mid-June through the end of July, almost every day was hot, with highs near 90 degrees and lows hovering above 70 degrees.

When are we going to do something about climate change?

Gradual changes

There was no actual heat wave. No daytime high temperature records were broken. But there was no relief, not even at night. On June 24, Pittsburgh broke the record for the highest low temperature on that date — 74 degrees. On July 25, the city broke the same record for that date.

How unusual is this? The long-term average temperature for Pittsburgh for July is a high of 83 degrees and a low of 64 degrees. That means half the time, the temperatures used to be lower than that.

In 2020, Pittsburgh missed winter altogether, with an average temperature 5 degrees warmer than normal. This summer has been less extreme than that. The average temperature in July was 3.9 degrees warmer than the long-term average. But because these changes are gradual, we might forget how different things have become.

When I moved to Pittsburgh in 1979, the long-term averages still applied. In the 1960s, summer temperatures were often in the 50s at night. In the 1970s, believe it or not, Pittsburgh averaged just 5 days a year of 90-degree temperatures.

By the 2010s, that had doubled to 10 such days a year. In 2024, there were 17 days in Pittsburgh of 90 degrees or above.

In some ways, this summer has been worse than last year. Globally, 2024 was the hottest year on record. It was fueled by an unusually strong El Nino phenomenon that lasted through the spring. You would expect a hot summer.

But in 2025, global conditions are neutral. That means this summer’s weather may be our new normal.

This is climate change caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels—oil, gas and coal—that add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It is not magic. It is not sun spots. It is not that the climate changes all the time. It is not that the sun got hotter since 1979.

The world’s getting warmer

In the 1990s, a scientific consensus formed that human activity was warming the global climate. Predictions were made of a warmer future. Scientists told us this would happen and 30 years later, it is happening. Does that sound like a coincidence?

Of course, science is often wrong. Scientists told us the COVID-19 virus emerged in a wildlife market in China. Now it looks like it might have been a lab. But, notice, scientists themselves worked at the matter and got closer to the truth.

Imagine the rewards to the scientist who could show that climate change is not happening or is caused by something else. That scientist would not only get rich but would win the Nobel Prize. Nobody can show that because climate change caused by humans is true.

You can trust science in the long run.

How did climate change become a political issue? After all, it is the result of the activity of all of us. No one is particularly at fault. So why can’t we just accept it and do something about it?

Politicians are a large part of the problem. The Democrats have done little about climate change. Kamala Harris hardly mentioned climate change during the 2024 presidential campaign. President Joe Biden did create incentives for the change to cleaner energy production, but this was quite modest.

If climate change is such an emergency, why are Democrats not embracing nuclear power? Nuclear power is dangerous, to be sure. But not as dangerous as climate change.

The Republicans are much worse. The EPA is now proposing to rescind the finding that climate change harms public health. Of course it does.

The Republican answer to climate change is to pretend it’s not happening, like an ostrich. They make fun of anyone concerned about it. If you’re worried about climate change, they call you an alarmist. They called Winston Churchill an alarmist, too.

Don’t these people have grandchildren? I’m worried about the year 2200. We are expecting a granddaughter who will be 75-years-old that year. What will Pittsburgh’s climate be like then?

What we need

We don’t need government control of the economy to fight climate change. We just need an intelligent incentive structure to gradually phase out the use of oil and natural gas. And we need to stop burning coal.

It is not too late to prevent a catastrophe. But we can’t take any steps until we end our climate change denial and start talking seriously about what to do.

The days are already shorter and August has been cooler. Fall is coming. I hope for a long, warm autumn. But we better not forget the relentless summer of 2025.

Bruce Ledewitz is professor of law emeritus at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. He writes every other Monday. The views expressed do not represent those of Duquesne University.