Month 12, Day 20: Don’t Be Silly! They Couldn’t Hit An Elephant At This Dist—!

If only this had started happening, I dunno, maybe twenty or thirty years ago:

The United States’ top climate negotiator is calling on scientists and policymakers to orchestrate an “educational effort” to change the public’s perception about climate change.

Todd Stern, the country’s special envoy on climate change, pointed to a gap between what science says about the changing climate and what American’s believe.

“There is a gap and I think there is an educational effort that really needs to be made,” he said in a pre-taped interview with the energy and environment news program energyNow! that aired Sunday. Asked who should lead the education effort, Stern pointed to both scientists and policymakers.

Better late than never, I suppose.

Dear Mr. Stern,

Your call for a widespread educational effort to inform American citizens about the realities of climate change is absolutely correct. The news media have been at best irresponsible and at worst criminally negligent, at a time when we need accurate information more than ever. The opposition to the very notion of global heating in the Republican party has now reached a point where it is essentially an article of faith — a religious conviction, if you will. These two factors have combined in a deadly synergy that virtually guarantees a systemic failure to act in the face of the gravest threat humanity has confronted in millennia.

Ordinary citizens have little recourse in the face of such egregious misconduct in the corridors of power, and very few of us have the time or inclination to educate ourselves about the dimensions of the problem. Those who do will write letters and make telephone calls, and invariably we’ll be ignored by those who are beholden to the world’s largest polluters and the mountains of cash they manipulate.

If we are to forestall a tragic outcome for our species and for our planet, we need the strong and unambiguous voices of people who are prepared to speak with authority on the issues of climate, attacking attack the systemic propagation of ignorance everywhere. Your position as the chief climate negotiator for the United States gives you that authority. I urge you to organize a Climate Misinformation Task Force that will take on the ignorance engendered by the media and enabled by our dysfunctional political system.

This is a debate our species cannot afford to lose. If the ignorant and avaricious have the final say in the climate debate, that could be the last words of our civilization or our species.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders