"You'll Only Take My Ignorance When You Pry it From My Cold, Dead Hands" . . . Careful for What You Wish For Wingnuts...

Charlie Pierce states the obvious:

In case you haven't noticed, the rest of the world is getting the crap knocked out of it. As much of this country froze, Australia was in the process of burning down and/or melting. Ocean storms of Sandy-ish ferocity blew all hell into Galway and Cork in Ireland. Great Britain is next. They're worried about the Olympics in Russia not just because of Chechen terrorists, but because there might not be enough snow. The weather is becoming extreme almost everywhere, and this is neither natural nor unpredictable. We have screwed with the climate and now the climate is screwing us back, in a very big way. We have turned the planet into a freak show, and we're Cleopatra the trapeze lady at the end of the picture.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/climate-wars-010714


The Gadfly is under no illusions whatsoever dear readers when he tells you that he knows full well that he is preaching to the choir when it comes to the subject of global warming/climate change.

It is an unmitigated waste of time and energy to attempt to hold a rational discussion with people who put more faith in the views of the renowned climatologist, oceanographer, biochemist and meteorological expert - Professor Rush Limbaugh - than they do in the 97% of the world's foremost, reputable climate scientists, professionals who have spent their entire lives studying this shit, who agree that man-made activities, particularly the unrelenting mining, processing and burning of fossil fuels, is warming the planet and causing extreme fluctuations in the Earth's delicate climate models and as a result, producing ever more severe weather events.

These same people are also, unsurprisingly, intellectually incapable of grasping the concept that the weather, as they are experiencing it at any given moment from the back porch of their trailer home in Bumblefuck, Oklahoma, has absolutely nothing to goddamn do with the encompassing subject of global climate change itself.  It is maddening to The Gadfly to hear the same juvenile responses on the boob tube every time it snows or gets cold that, "see - it's freezing here in Bumblefuck - global warming is a hoax!"  Or, "see, we just got hit with 2 feet of snow here in Bumblefuck, so global warming is a hoax!"  And of course, those brilliant observations are typically punctuated with the hoary old one-liner, "Al Gore is fat!"  When he sees these oafs on his teevee screen it makes The Gadfly wish at times that he could reach his hands and arms through the television set, grab one of those clowns by the throat and just bitch-slap the stupid out of them.

Anyhow, suffice to say it will probably take another couple of Hurricane Katrinas, a few more polar vortexes, or a drought severe enough to cause a major American city to ration water usage, before the good rubes of Bumblefuck acknowledge that something is amiss.  Even then though, instead of seeing the reality, they will just likely claim that it's a conspiracy by liberal, commie scientists to control their lives and make Al Gore Emperor For Life.

Ultimately - they cling to the stupid branches of their Stupid Tree not only at their own peril, but at the peril of the rest of us as well.

Sigh . . . . . . . .



----TFG