Romm's Sleight of Hand

Joe Romm never misses a disaster to beat the global warming drum. You name it-- floods, fires, hurricanes--if they're in the headlines, then he finds a way to connect them to climate change. It's tricky stuff because he's smart enough to know that no single climatic event or catastrophe can be pinned exclusively on greenhouse gases. Yet he always suggests that climate change is at least a contributing factor and that disaster X should be viewed like the proverbial "canary in the coalmine"--a warning of what's to come if carbon emissions are not stabilized. So it's no surprise that Romm seizes on the latest California wildlfires in a recent post. He did the same with Australia's tragic conflagrations last winter. Both times Romm also chastised the mainstream media for not playing up the supposed climate change link. That's why I've taken to calling him a propagandist. To Romm, disasters are ...