Republicans were always pretty bad on global warming--but at least there used to be moderates one could point to who understood the science, even if they weren't running the show. Nowadays, though, it seems even that is vanishing. In the latest New Republic, Bill McKibben has a piece about all this. As he puts it, "On what is quite possibly the single biggest issue the planet has faced, American conservatism has reached a near-unanimous position, and that position is: pay no attention to all those scientists." It's really incredible to think we've reached this point. McKibben chalks it up not to fossil fuel money, but to deep seated conspiratorial thinking, driven of course by ideology and resentment of intellectual elites. Somehow, as only McKibben can do, he nevertheless manages to end on an upbeat note:
In the meantime, many of us are rolling up our sleeves and getting down to work. On October 10, in thousands of communities around the country, we’re holding a Global Work Party to put up solar panels and dig community gardens and lay out bike paths. We don’t think we can stop climate change this way—that will take action to reset the price of carbon. But we do think we can show the way. Not with a Tea Party, but with a work party. Which, in a different era, would have appealed to conservatives above all.
Read the whole piece here
.
