The right-wing and its media machinery, Fox News, are apoplectic about Pope Francis' calm, rationale support for transitioning from a carbon-based economy to one that will, eventually, reverse the damage our use of fossil fuels has done to the ecological systems that support life on earth.
We are literally in a race to the finish: those, who like Pope Francis, believe that climate change is an existential threat against those whose income and values depend one way or another on the status quo. What happens, if in this race to the near future, it turns out that these accelerating signals from the climate -- record drought, forest fires, melting glaciers and thawing permafrost -- reverse without any change in our consumption of fossil fuels or life-style dependent on carbon? In that case, the climate change deniers get to tell us, "we told you so". What happens if the opposite is true: that the extreme weather events we are experiencing are just the tip of the (melting) iceberg and that the disappearing glaciers are not just curiosities but coincide with world-wide food production falling off a cliff? In that case, we are all completely screwed and the climate change deniers will disappear into the crowd like mob instigators who, when they are apprehended, will claim that it is not their fault.
If one stares in the face the potential for unlimited liability, then climate change denialism is the ultimate form of taxation without representation because it means a minority, funded by billionaire polluters and their political hirelings, just made life impossible for the majority.
Along this line I couldn't help noticing how the right wing story line is squirming and shifting; not just based on Pope Francis' visit, although the Pope's focus on climate change is throwing serious turmoil into the right-wing electoral number cruncher models. Sharon Kelly, for AlterNet, reports on one of the Jeb Bush / Koch Brothers operations, The Heartland Institute. ("Fossil Fuel Front Group Makes Ridiculous Attack on the Pope: The anti-science climate denial think tank is trying to derail the pontiff's call to climate action" September 22, 2015")
Senator Inhofe is the GOP chairman of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, thanks to the Republican majority in Congress. He has been the front line of attack against climate change awareness for a very long time.
Worth noting: Jeb Bush used exactly the same talking point about Pope Francis at a NH rally in June: “... I don’t get my economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope.”
We are literally in a race to the finish: those, who like Pope Francis, believe that climate change is an existential threat against those whose income and values depend one way or another on the status quo. What happens, if in this race to the near future, it turns out that these accelerating signals from the climate -- record drought, forest fires, melting glaciers and thawing permafrost -- reverse without any change in our consumption of fossil fuels or life-style dependent on carbon? In that case, the climate change deniers get to tell us, "we told you so". What happens if the opposite is true: that the extreme weather events we are experiencing are just the tip of the (melting) iceberg and that the disappearing glaciers are not just curiosities but coincide with world-wide food production falling off a cliff? In that case, we are all completely screwed and the climate change deniers will disappear into the crowd like mob instigators who, when they are apprehended, will claim that it is not their fault.
If one stares in the face the potential for unlimited liability, then climate change denialism is the ultimate form of taxation without representation because it means a minority, funded by billionaire polluters and their political hirelings, just made life impossible for the majority.
Along this line I couldn't help noticing how the right wing story line is squirming and shifting; not just based on Pope Francis' visit, although the Pope's focus on climate change is throwing serious turmoil into the right-wing electoral number cruncher models. Sharon Kelly, for AlterNet, reports on one of the Jeb Bush / Koch Brothers operations, The Heartland Institute. ("Fossil Fuel Front Group Makes Ridiculous Attack on the Pope: The anti-science climate denial think tank is trying to derail the pontiff's call to climate action" September 22, 2015")
This summer, the Heartland Institute honored Sen. Inhofe at the group's annual conference, presenting him with their 2015 Political Leadership on Climate Change Award. Senator Inhofe appeared at that event as the keynote speaker.
Around the same time, Sen. Inhofe had a sharp message for the Pope on climate issues. “Everyone is going to ride the Pope now. Isn’t that wonderful,” Sen Inhofe told the Guardian. “The Pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours.”
Senator Inhofe is the GOP chairman of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, thanks to the Republican majority in Congress. He has been the front line of attack against climate change awareness for a very long time.
Worth noting: Jeb Bush used exactly the same talking point about Pope Francis at a NH rally in June: “... I don’t get my economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope.”
1 comment:
After leaving Tallahassee, Jeb? got a job at Lehman Bros. and helped implode them.
If Jeb? doesn't get elected, he probably had a sweet job lined up consulting for VW but now that they have imploded, to where is he looking for his next payoff? This will probably help explain his position....LOL.
These GOP shills remind me of the GOP politicians in late 1930s who said Hitler was not our problem and forbid FDR from preparing for war.
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