Year 2, Month 6, Day 1: I Wanna Go To Andorra

The Guardian (UK) notes that the US armed forces are actively preparing for the problems of climate change:

Federal legislation to combat climate change is quashed for the foreseeable future, scuttled by congressional climate cranks who allege the climate-science jury is still out. What’s become clear is that, for some, the jury will always be out. We can’t stack scientific facts high enough to hop over the fortified ideological walls they’ve erected around themselves. Fortunately, though, a four-star trump card waits in the wings: the US national security apparatus.

The comments are priceless. Sent May 20:

The cognitive dissonance involved in being a modern-day Republican is extreme, and it will no doubt be further exacerbated by the conclusions drawn by the United States military on the dangers posed by climate change. With a record that includes decades of posturing about “deferring to the generals” on defense issues, the GOP is now in a bit of a box when it comes to responding to the armed forces’ consensus on the strategic consequences of the greenhouse effect. Forced by the exigencies of Republican primary elections to deny simultaneously both scientific evidence and the advice of their military leaders, these anti-science legislators have an impossible needle to thread. Were the issues involved not ones of such great moment, the dilemma of contemporary conservatives would be irresistibly comical. Alas, this is no laughing matter — an assessment bolstered by every single strategic analysis of climate change and its epiphenomena.

Warren Senders