AlterNet: The Superstitious Right Fights Good Science on Global Warming

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The Superstitious Right Fights Good Science on Global Warming

By David Michael Green, AlterNet. Posted July 7, 2008.

In a society devoted like no other to the politics of fear, we have somehow managed to forget the one thing we should probably fear most.




We live in the most astonishing of times, politically speaking.

And I don't mean that as a compliment.

There is so much I would hate to try to explain to an alien about our politics. Same with a human five centuries from now -- it's just that I'm not so sure there'll be any.

One president has oral sex in a private consensual relationship and lies about it, so right-wing freaks spend $40 million to investigate this most heinous of crimes and bring impeachment charges against a president for only the second time in American history. Meanwhile, one of their own trashes the Constitution at every turn and isn't even investigated, let alone impeached, let alone removed from office.

This same president plunged the world into war on the basis of non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but couldn't be less concerned when North Korea actually goes nuclear on his watch. This president went to war to bring democracy to the Arab world, but can't even be bothered to pressure Egypt or Saudi Arabia to move a tad in that direction. This president uses an attack on the US to justify international belligerence and mass human rights violations, but doesn't seem very interested in even attacking, let alone vanquishing, the supposed perpetrator.

We could go on and on detailing the ludicrous inanities of American politics in the age of Bush (himself Exhibit A), but really my favorite has to be the case of global warming. In a society devoted like no other to the politics of fear, we have somehow managed to forget the one thing we should probably fear most.

Imagine if there was a meteor headed toward our one and only planet, with the potential to do devastating and possibly lethal damage to the planet. Imagine that we had the technological capability to divert the course of this weapon of the massiest mass destruction, and all we needed was the will to do so. And imagine that we chose to focus our society's energies instead on ... gay marriage. Or illegal immigration. Or premarital sex. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/90477/