Year 2, Month 6, Day 16: True Crime Comics

The Gray Lady heralds the news that Paul Wolfowitz’ erstwhile stamping ground has decided to get involved. That’s good news, I suppose. The Big Dog certainly thinks so:

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The World Bank signed an agreement on Wednesday with mayors from 40 of the world’s biggest cities to work on technical and financial assistance for projects to minimize the effects of climate change.

The deal, announced at the C40 large cities climate meeting here, will ease access to financing for climate-change-reduction projects. It was hailed by many of the mayors, including Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City, and by former President Bill Clinton, who attended the event as part of a new partnership with Mr. Bloomberg.

“The World Bank announcement is terrifically important,” Mr. Clinton said. “It will give credibility to these projects to get private capital.”

But there’s only one thing that can change a denialist’s mind.

Sent June 2:

The World Bank’s support of climate change mitigation projects cannot reverse the accelerating consequences of the greenhouse effect — despite the prodigious technical and intellectual resources of our civilization, we haven’t yet figured out ways to evade the laws of physics. Still, the Bank’s announcement is a positive development, both because it will spur much-needed investments in ecologically wise urban planning, and because it will make it that much harder for the climate denialists and oil profiteers in America’s dysfunctional political system to continue rationalizing their unwillingness to address the issue with spurious economic arguments. While environmental reasons will never spur Republican legislators to address climate change, once renewable energy and sustainable development are really where the money is, Willie Sutton’s oft-quoted motivation may just do the trick.

Warren Senders