How we work
Methods
What we score
Orange Sky Alert scores what leading Democrats said in public in the first seven days after a climate-related disaster made national news.
Each of those officials gets one score for each disaster, including if they said nothing. Several speeches by the same person still count as one score.
If they talked about this disaster in those seven days, the mention score is yes. Only then do we ask the other two questions: did they connect this disaster to climate change, and did they name Republican obstruction of climate action. Mentioning the disaster is not, by itself, a yes on climate or on obstruction.
A person who never mentioned the disaster still counts in the total, because they had the chance to speak. If two disasters overlap on the calendar, both stay in. One speech counts for both only if it names both.
We ask three questions, in this order.
Did they mention this disaster?
Did they talk about this storm, fire, flood, smoke, or heat, the places hit, or the response to this disaster? A safety or air-quality warning about this event counts. A generic climate speech, a different disaster, or weather in another country does not.
Did they connect it to climate change?
Did they say this disaster is linked to climate change, global warming, or the climate crisis? Talk of clean energy or rebuilding, with no climate cause, is no.
Did they name Republican obstruction of climate action?
This question produces two table numbers. Do not add them together.
- Yes: they said Republicans blocked, repealed, or defunded climate policy (the IRA, Paris, a specific vote) and tied that fight to this disaster.
- Partial: they blamed Republicans about this disaster without naming a blocked climate law. Examples: a fight over disaster aid; cuts to weather or emergency agencies (NWS, FEMA, NOAA); blaming oil companies with no bill or treaty named; saying Republicans deny climate change, without naming a climate law they blocked.
If they never mentioned this disaster, we stop. Climate is no. Obstruction is no. Obstruction partial is no. If they did mention it, climate and obstruction are scored separately.
Yes is meant to be hard. They have to say Republicans blocked climate policy — the IRA, Paris, a specific vote — and tie that fight to this disaster. “Republicans won’t send aid” is an aid fight, not yes. An old vote still counts if they name it while talking about this disaster. A climate speech that never mentions this disaster does not.
Yes looks like this: during these fires, they say Republicans are trying to kill the IRA or the Green New Deal, pull out of Paris, or that they voted no on a climate bill.
If they named a blocked climate law, they are yes — even if they also talked about disaster aid or FEMA. Count them once, as yes. Do not also count them as partial.
Which disasters are in
From 2023 on, a disaster is in if it meets all four of these criteria:
- Tied to climate. Wildfire, smoke, flash flooding, hurricane, extreme heat, or a similar kind of disaster — not ordinary bad weather. There has to be a public climate connection.
- National news. Not only local coverage.
- A clear start. We can say when it became a national story. The seven days begin there. Each disaster page says why that date was selected.
- One national moment. Not the same news cycle twice, and not one storm carved into pieces.
Deaths and dollar losses do not determine which disasters are included. A deadly local flood can stay out if it never became national news. A quieter national story can still be in. Hurricane Debby (August 2024) is the example: serious flooding, no single national start we could fix, so it is out even though it killed more people and cost more than some storms that are in.
Two events on overlapping days can both be in if they were two national stories. Palisades and Eaton were two fires in Los Angeles in January 2025. They burned on overlapping days, but each had its own national news day, so both are in.
The seven days
The clock starts when the disaster becomes national news, not when the rain first fell or the fire first started. It runs seven days, to the hour. Only statements in that stretch change the scores. Later remarks can appear as background. They do not change the numbers.
Heat, long fire seasons, and weeks of smoke do not start on the first hot afternoon. They start when the country is treating it as national news.
Most disasters start at noon U.S. time that day. Heat and overnight air-quality alerts start at 9 a.m. Each page prints the start and end.
Core Democratic Officials
We score Core Democratic Officials who were in office on the first day of each disaster:
- Every Democratic U.S. senator, plus Independents who caucus with Democrats (King and Sanders). Not Sinema.
- House Democratic leaders only: Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, Pete Aguilar. Not the rest of the House.
- The DNC chair that day.
Governors, mayors, other House members, the president, candidates, and staff can appear as background. They do not go into the totals. We count who held the job on day one. In the current Congress that is usually 51 people. In 2023–2024 the number is slightly different.
| Role | Canadian Wildfire Smoke (June 2023) | Eastern U.S. Heat Dome (June 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Senators | 50 | 47 |
| House leadership | 3 | 3 |
| DNC chair | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 54 | 51 |
Where we look
We look in the same four places for every disaster: officials’ own press offices, party press, the Congressional Record, and national news (AP, Reuters, PBS, NPR, CNN). Personal social media is out, unless a news story quotes the post or an official press page reprints it.
We search this disaster in those four places, in the seven-day window. Then we match names to the list of officials. If someone on the list never appears, that person is no. If they do appear, we score what they said.
A no means we searched this disaster and that person never turned up. We did look. We do not open every official’s press page one by one.
How we code
We set the seven-day period and the list of officials for each disaster. ChatGPT and Claude independently read original news and official statements and score the statements they find. They do not see this project’s scores. Everyone else on the list is no. They code one disaster at a time. We settle disagreements using these rules and then close the record.
Deaths and cost
What officials said is one job. How many people died, and how much it cost, is another.
We publish first death and cost figures six months after the disaster, and final figures after two years. We only use sources from before each of those closing dates. Until the six-month figures exist, we do not put death and cost numbers in the headline. Early counts may appear as “at least” in the write-up. If we cannot defend a cost figure, that line says Unknown. Heat and smoke often have no single official death toll. We still record the best number we can defend, or we say we cannot.
We still score what Democrats said in the seven days, even if death and cost figures are not ready yet.
What Republicans said
A separate page tracks Republican blocks of federal climate policy. Disaster pages may also quote how Republicans talked about that disaster in the same seven days. Those quotes are not part of the Democratic totals.
What each disaster page shows
A short write-up: what happened, why the clock started that day, what these Democrats said, what Republicans said, and death and cost figures with sources. Then the dates, the four numbers, and the source list. Long scoring notes stay off the page.