I was looking at a poll the other day that found that 12% of the members of the Republican Party thought climate change was an important issue.
This is fascinating. I live in the middle of the United States. It is hotter than it has ever been and the weather more dramatic and powerful than it has ever been. You can literally feel climate change in the middle United States.
And yet, the great majority of one of the major political parties in the United States look at the thermostat and mutter, “Oh, no big deal.”
Looking at the news over the last few days, one sees that in the Philippines, it has gotten so hot that schools have been closed and classes moved online. India is in the grip of a huge heatwave.
And just today, now, here is a lead news article that indicates that thirty states are in the midst of record breaking heat wave.
“My Goodness” That looks surprisingly like objective evidence of climate change and maybe even a looming emergency.
So, surely Republicans will notice, right?
That would be nice. It would be part of the duty of a citizen in participative democracy to pay attention to facts and adjust their views accordingly but they will not change their minds. They live in a world where “owning the libs” is much of the meaning in their lives. And you can say, “James, that can’t be much of a life?” Well, yes, it is not much of a life. Thus there is just a ton of hysterical anger.
If you think I’m wrong. Look at the other stuff they are denying. They deny there is any significant racism in the United States (except against white people). Simply, reading the daily new should thoroughly prove that racism continues in America. It seems they don’t read. They deny the evidence of poverty and hunger in the United States to the point of refusing to supplement school lunch programs to feed children during the summer. And I could go on.
Florida has passed legislation removing climate change from consideration when making policy and abandoning a variety of green initiatives while also forbidding the construction of wind turbines on the coast.
To quote the governor of Florida:
“We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” DeSantis said in a post on the X social media platform.
The level of irony in the words of the governor are difficult to approach. Florida is in the middle of very serious heat wave, there are coral die offs all along the coast, and insurance companies are fleeing the state like so many rats from an overheated and perhaps burning ship.
I am concerned. Not about the Republicans, their current fantasies are really just silly. Saving them from nonsense is not something I can do. When you surrender your judgment to a cult, an online posting, the rants of hate radio or some weird conspiracy theory, the death of judgment and intelligence follows. What concerns me is that this nation where I make my home will probably be unable to deal intelligently and effectively with climate change. And because of our enormous economic power, we may doom much of the world with us.
It is the greed enshrined in our society’s goals and the way our corporations are set up solely to take money as their sole goal that will probably doom us and our future generations. It is very sad. We live in a nation developed in the ideas of the Enlightenment. We have the words of Lincoln and Thomas Paine to guide us – and all of that history or righteousness and glory is being denied, diminished and attacked.
Oh well, if I am to die of heat stroke or flooding or some other interesting element of climate change, I will die here in the United States. It is my home and I consider myself a patriot.
It is unfortunate that the limitations, foolishness and greed of a some Americans are going to do so much damage to so many.
James Alan Pilant
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tv-meteorologist-blasts-florida-don-152447336.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hot-mexico-howler-monkeys-falling-165619685.html
After Covid, now heat forces schools to go online in the Philippines | The Independent
‘Red alert’ in Delhi after temperature soars to 47C as heatwave grips India’s north (msn.com)
https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/terrifying-heatwave-map-shows-30-503037
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/16/1251769080/florida-desantis-climate-change-law
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