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As hurricanes and wildfires rage, US climate politics enters the realm of farce
Climate denial is less credible, but more powerful, than ever.
On Tuesday afternoon, as Southern Floridians nervously watched Hurricane Irma become a Category 5 monster, they received an odd message from popular right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh: The hurricane forecasts are not to be trusted.
In “official meteorological circles,” he said, “they believe that Al Gore is correct” about climate change. They “desire to advance this climate change agenda,” he warned, “and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it.” So these meteorologists, he argued, create needless fear and panic.
What’s more,local TV stations are hyping the hurricane to drum up bottled-water sales for local businesses. (Seriously.) For Limbaugh, the hurricane conspiracy goes deep.
If you can put aside how irresponsible it is to send that kind of message to a group of people in real and serious danger (uh, extremely irresponsible), it’s almost funny. This is what conservative climate denial has come to. Even with one climate-amplified hurricane barely in the rearview mirror, another barreling down, and much of the Western half of the country on fire, the only reaction someone like Limbaugh can imagine is to double down.He would rather deny an oncoming hurricane than accept climate change.
It is difficult to appreciate, from up close and with so much else going on, just how deeply and ceaselessly bizarre US climate politics has become. Limbaugh is a good case study, but he’s not the only one. Several bits of recent news — for instance, Trump’s nomination of a climate denier with no science credentials to lead NASA — serve to illustrate the same point. American climate politics have gone from frustrating and weird to ... parody? Farce? Reductio ad absurdum? It’s difficult to know the right term. But it ain’t healthy.
On Tuesday afternoon, as Southern Floridians nervously watched Hurricane Irma become a Category 5 monster, they received an odd message from popular right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh: The hurricane forecasts are not to be trusted.
In “official meteorological circles,” he said, “they believe that Al Gore is correct” about climate change. They “desire to advance this climate change agenda,” he warned, “and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it.” So these meteorologists, he argued, create needless fear and panic.
What’s more,local TV stations are hyping the hurricane to drum up bottled-water sales for local businesses. (Seriously.) For Limbaugh, the hurricane conspiracy goes deep.
If you can put aside how irresponsible it is to send that kind of message to a group of people in real and serious danger (uh, extremely irresponsible), it’s almost funny. This is what conservative climate denial has come to. Even with one climate-amplified hurricane barely in the rearview mirror, another barreling down, and much of the Western half of the country on fire, the only reaction someone like Limbaugh can imagine is to double down.He would rather deny an oncoming hurricane than accept climate change.
It is difficult to appreciate, from up close and with so much else going on, just how deeply and ceaselessly bizarre US climate politics has become. Limbaugh is a good case study, but he’s not the only one. Several bits of recent news — for instance, Trump’s nomination of a climate denier with no science credentials to lead NASA — serve to illustrate the same point. American climate politics have gone from frustrating and weird to ... parody? Farce? Reductio ad absurdum? It’s difficult to know the right term. But it ain’t healthy.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2017/9/7/16258848/us-climate-politics-farce
4 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Ever since the Reich succeeded in installing dump, this country has been turned down a dark path. Their crackpot radical extremist views are now poisoning OUR Federal Government, big time.
