Conspiracies and cynical indifference are the right’s latest climate strategy
Conspiracies and cynical indifference are the right’s latest climate strategy
The Hill [Opinion] | Svante Myrick | April 15, 2024
Wildfires, floods and soaring temperatures have made climate change real to many Americans. Yet a sizeable number continue to dismiss the scientific consensus that human activity is to blame. That’s in part because of a decades-long campaign by fossil fuel companies to muddy the facts and promote fringe explanations….
…Meanwhile, rejecting science — whether in the field of climate change, medicine or other disciplines — doesn’t just make us less informed; it makes us poorer, weaker and sicker. Millions of people suffer, get sick and die from the cancer alleys, COVID deaths and other harms that happen when greed, politics and willful ignorance combine into science denialism.
We saw far too much of that in the Trump administration. Researchers from Columbia University and the nonprofit Climate Science Legal Defense [F]und report that Trump’s effort to undermine scientific research included 154 documented cases of federal government censorship of scientists.
That’s horrifying, and we can’t let it happen again.