Triggering global warming

It’s tempting to dismiss Deputy PM Michael McCormack’s attack on “inner city greenies” who draw the link between climate change and bushfires as an ignorant rant. In reality, McCormack is pointing to a central truth about rightwing denialism on this issue.

Deniers like McCormack don’t (in most cases) believe the stupid things they are saying about climate change. It’s a shibboleth (a signal of tribal membership) and for this purpose, the stupider the better.

Nor is primarily about the economic interests of the fossil fuel lobby. McCormack doesn’t (AFAIK) have any coal mines in his electorate, and the farmers who put him in Parliament are being hit harder by the drought than anyone else.

Read the story by John Quiggin - “Triggering global warming.”

Demand for climate science isn’t going away no matter what Trump says

Despite Trump administration officials working to dismiss the government’s alarming new National Climate Assessment (NCA), scientists at the American Geophysical Union meeting sounded an optimistic note this week, emphasizing that the report’s findings are being widely accepted across the country. 

A DANIA BEACH LIFEGUARD STANDS ON HIS LIFEGUARD
 STAND THAT IS IN DANGER OF BEING SWEPT OUT TO SEA.
RECENT STORMS ERODED THE BEACH AS MUNICIPALITIES TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAVE THE BEACHES AS WELL AS
HOW TO COMBAT THE CONSEQUENCES OF SEA LEVEL RISE THAT THREATENS SOME OF THE COASTAL CITIES.

“You asked if people are not taking it seriously. I think it’s quite the opposite,” Michael Wehner, a scientist studying human influence on extreme weather and one of the climate assessment authors, told ThinkProgress. “It is taken very seriously by a large number of people. There will always be people who aren’t going to believe this, and those people are just missing the boat.” 

Even if the science is broadly accepted, however, scientists emphasized that policies to address the problem lag behind and the world is still far from where it needs to be to seriously tackle dangerous climate change. 

Read the ThinkProgress story by Kyla Mandell - “Demand for climate science isn’t going away no matter what Trump says.”