A candidate running for Senate in New Jersey attributed Friday’s east coast earthquake to climate change.
Christina Khalil, who is running for a Senate seat in New Jersey as a member of the Green Party, blamed the “climate crisis” for the unusual magnitude 4.8 earthquake that struck her state and several others bordering it on Friday. Khalil is hoping to take the seat currently occupied by longtime Democratic New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, who now faces numerous charges related to alleged bribery schemes involving Qatar and Egypt.
“I experienced my first earthquake in NJ. We never get earthquakes. The climate crisis is real,” Khalil wrote in a post shared on X, formerly Twitter. “The weirdest experience ever.”
While Khalil suggests that climate change is responsible for the tremor, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) rejects that there is any connection between climate conditions and seismic activity.
“With the advent of seismology — the study of earthquakes — we now know that most quakes are caused by tectonic processes — forces within the solid Earth that drive changes in the structure of Earth’s crust, primarily the rupture of underground rock masses along faults,” according to Alan Buis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We also know that most earthquakes occur far beneath Earth’s surface, well beyond the influence of surface temperatures and conditions. Finally, we know the statistical distribution of earthquakes is approximately equal across all types of weather conditions. Myth busted.”
The myth that weather and earthquakes are linked spans back to antiquity, according to Buis. Aristotle, a philosopher who lived in Ancient Greece, “proposed in the 4th century B.C. that earthquakes were caused by trapped winds escaping from subterranean caves.”
Menendez — whose job approval numbers have tanked in the wake of the scandal — recently announced that he will not be running for reelection as a Democrat, and Tammy Murphy, the wife of Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, withdrew from the race in March. Democratic New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim is the frontrunner in the Senate race, according to The Hill.
Khlail’s campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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