Month 12, Day 15: Betcha Didn’t See THAT One Coming!

The Times reports on a new study released by the National Academy of Sciences that predicts a world of hurt for the Southwest.

As scientists attempt to warn residents of the American southwest that potentially catastrophic droughts are all but inevitable in the coming decades, the area’s politicians are locked in an ideological trap that makes it impossible for them to respond sensibly. Since the rise of the Tea Party movement, inflexible denial of the very possibility of climate change is now the only position open to Republican legislators who wish to avoid primary opposition. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time they’ve refused to admit the relevance of warnings from other sectors of society. If I recall correctly, “nobody” anticipated the breach of the levees in New Orleans, the absence of Iraqi WMDs, the collapse of the housing market, or, for that matter, that Osama Bin Laden might attempt a terror attack in the United States. The word “nobody” seems to be a sort of conservative shorthand for “people who understand the problem.”

Warren Senders