The members of the progressive caucus were in lockstep as their chairman began to expatiate on the urgency of dealing with climate change. “We are in the middle of a historic drought,” he said. “Our once plush green fields have turned to arid deserts. We must stop procrastinating or we will continue to have out of control wildfires and other weather extremes that will further exacerbate our climate crisis, which grows more dire with each passing month of inaction.”

“The foregoing comments from my esteemed colleague on the left,” the conservative congressman interrupted, “reflect his empty, liberal rhetoric designed to provide cover for all this hysteria around so-called climate change. Throughout recorded history there have been multiple cyclical weather patterns, yet our planet has survived and humanity has thrived.”

“Sir,” the progressive caucus chairman said, “climate and weather are not the same. Weather refers to short-term atmospheric conditions, while climate refers to long-term and potentially irreversible changes to the weather averaged over an extended period of time.”

“You liberals are bound and determined to destroy our economy by spending billions of dollars to fix a problem that doesn’t exist,” the conservative congressman said. “There have always been incidents of wildfires, massive storms, floods, and earthquakes. Let us not be reactionaries and go off half-cocked.”

“Congressman, you are seventy-five years old. If you can’t do what’s necessary to save our planet for your generation, think about what you can do to save it for your grandchildren’s generation — before it’s too late.”

“That’s their problem, not mine,” the congressman said coldly. “They’ll figure something out.”

“No, congressman, it’s up to us to figure this out before we completely squander our children’s futures. We need to act now or we will have missed this, and possibly the final, opportunity to save our planet.”

Written for these daily prompts from yesterday: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (lockstep), Your Daily Word Prompt (expatiate), Ragtag Daily Prompt (arid), My Vivid Blog (procrastinating), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (foregoing), Word of the Day Challenge (cover), and The Daily Spur (incident).