Understanding climate denial used to seem easy: It was all about greed. Delve into the background of a researcher challenging the scientific consensus, a think tank trying to block climate action or a politician pronouncing climate change a hoax and you would almost always find major financial backing from the fossil fuel industry.
Those were simpler, more innocent times, and I miss them.
True, greed is still a major factor in anti-environmentalism. But climate denial has also become a front in the culture wars, with right-wingers rejecting the science in part because they dislike science in general and opposing action against emissions out of visceral opposition to anything liberals support.
And this cultural dimension of climate arguments has emerged at the worst possible moment — a moment when both the extreme danger from unchecked emissions and the path toward slashing those emissions are clearer than ever.
Some background: Scientists who began warning decades ago that the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere would have dangerous effects on the […]
I was encouraged to learn yesterday that renowned climate activist McKibben has teamed up with African American acrivist, Akaya Windwood to pull in Seniors to Climate Action. Many are big stockholders of fossil fuels. They’re the majority in the Senate and they have TIME on their hands to become engaged, which they weren’t before now. THANK YOU, BILL!
The wildlife in Lahaina is not just a tragedy caused by climate change.
It is a tragedy caused by a failure of government at both the state and county levels. This area was known to be at wildfire risk, yet there were no controlled burns, no defensible space, a lack of firefighting equipment, a lack of firefighting personnel and training, no evacuation plan, no warning system that could reach the people who needed to be reached.
What a disaster! And it will not be the last, not only because climate change is getting worse, but because local, state, and federal governments are inept at helping those who are most vulnerable to the vagaries of natural disasters, including not only wildfires, but droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and plagues.