Year 4, Month 5, Day 31: A Miasmatic Cloud Of Purple Stink

The San Diego Union-Times notes that their city’s residents are looking around them, and not liking what they see:

More than four out of five San Diegans are concerned about climate change, according to a newly released poll commissioned by a coalition of local universities and policy groups.

The telephone survey of 1,211 residents found that 84 percent of respondents believe climate change is happening, but that more than half think it’s not caused by human activities. About 72 percent believe climate change will affect them personally, while 58 percent believe their actions can make a difference in curtailing its effects.

Climate Education Partners, which commissioned the polling, includes the University of San Diego, California State University San Marcos, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the San Diego Foundation.

The survey of randomly selected residents cut across ethnic, economic and political lines, with 30 percent of participants answering in Spanish, said Michel Boudrias, lead scientist for Climate Education Partners and chairman of the University of San Diego’s department of marine science and environmental studies.

The Times-Union has a 125-word limit, most anomalously. May 19:

As atmospheric CO2 creeps ominously past the 400 ppm level, the day-to-day signs of global climate change are everywhere. Droughts, extreme storms, unpredictable temperature swings, longer and more intense fire seasons — name a place on Earth, and there are indicators that catastrophic climate shifts are under way.

With one shameful exception.

In the air-conditioned offices of fossil-fuel CEOs (along with the politicians and media figures they employ), there’s nothing to worry about. Insulated by billions of dollars from the terrifying realities of a climatically transformed planet, these malefactors of great wealth wield grossly disproportionate influence over our national and regional politics — an influence which they are using to block any responsible policy initiatives on climate change and the necessary transformations of our energy economy.

Published.