Extreme weather powerless against extreme intransigence
By Lucien Crowder | September 6, 2017
A certain sort of image has been prevalent on the internet this week. No, not wedding pictures photobombed by squirrels. Not perfectly timed photos of shark attacks. Nothing to do with the current-day appearance of random nobodies from 1980s sitcoms.
No, this week’s favored images on Twitter and the like have been satellite photos of hurricanes and fires. Really, really big storms originating in the tropics and really huge plumes of smoke carried across North America on the jet stream.
Such images are capable, in click-bait parlance, of leaving you speechless. They should be capable of turning climate skeptics into—well, maybe not climate believers, but perhaps … skeptics of skepticism?
Forget it. In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt agreed to an interview with Breitbart News (yes, the head of the EPA went on Breitbart News amid a major natural disaster). Pruitt, regarding anyone who wonders if climate change could be related to events such as powerful hurricanes, had this to say:
“I think for opportunistic media to, without basis or support, just to simply engage in a cause-and-effect type of discussion, and not focus upon the needs of people, I think is misplaced.”
Sounds like some kind of epitaph.
Publication Name: Talking Points Memo
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Topics: Climate Change, What We’re Reading
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Lucien Crowder
Lucien Crowder is the senior editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He oversees the Bulletin’s coverage of chemical weapons,... Read More
