Waterloo Times

According to Iowa Public Radio, a coalition of 222 scientists and researchers from Iowa colleges and universities recently released an Iowa Climate Statement that recommends investing in improvements to the state's electrical grid.

The state's electrical grid is not equipped to handle the increase of extreme weather events due to climate change, the coalition report said, according to IPR.

“.@IAGovernor is hoarding over one BILLION taxpayer dollars while Iowa's electrical grid remains vulnerable to climate change," Raymond Baker said in an Oct. 13 Tweet. "That's OUR money, @KimReynolds. How about using it for the good of the Iowa people? #VoteBlueToSaveIowa #AbbyForIowaGov."

The report said that Iowa residents are vulnerable to more frequent and longer electricity outages in the case of extreme weather events. One of those extreme events was the derecho last year that that had wind speeds comparable to a Category 4 hurricane and knocked out power to over 500,000 homes.

“Socioeconomically disadvantaged people are the most affected by the increased heat and humidity, intense precipitation events, power outages and flooding that we are currently experiencing," co-director of the University of Iowa Center for Global and regional Environmental Research Jerry Schnoor said, according to IPR. "And which will only become worse without climate action. We should protect vulnerable people and safeguard the future of our entire community.”

Improvements to the infrastructure would likely bring higher energy bills, according to IPR.

“Each of the increasing number of unprecedented climate extremes, such as the derecho in Iowa, the extreme freeze in Texas and wildfires in the western U.S. revealed new and disturbing challenges,“ said Gene Takle, emeritus professor of agronomy at Iowa State University, according to the Gazette.