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Joe Romm's Hairball

Joe Romm's latest media hairball critiques The New Yorker and David Owen's editorial. Discover his controversial take on climate discourse.

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Uh oh, looks like Joe Romm has coughed up another media hairball. This time, it's the New Yorker that has gone off message in Rommian land. So let's say there are legitimate points of contention with this editorial by David Owen. All you Rommians surely must see how the "indispensable" one completely undermines himself when he starts off writing that Owens' piece is

so bad, so filled with long-debunked right-wing talking points, it would barely qualify for the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Hey, case closed, right? Further down Romm asserts that Owens "undoes all of [Elizabeth] Kolbert's good work." Really? Kolbert's three parter (and eventual book) couldn't have been all that effective if Owens' short comment piece "undoes" all that "good work." In typically dismissive fashion, Romm boils his criticism down to bile size and repeats it ad naseum throughout: Owens is simply "parroting right-wing talking points." The latest signature Rommian media rant closes with this familiar rhetorical flourish:

Please let The New Yorker and David Owen know that you don't think they should be contributing to humanity's self-destruction.

Sound familiar? Haven't we heard this tune from Romm and other climate advocates before? For as long as I've been paying attention, religious social conservatives have been blaming the imminent end of the world on The New York Times and The New Yorker. Joe, you're in illustrious company.

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