The Washington Post's
Terrance McCoy reports on climate change denial in Florida:
One former official, Kristina Trotta, told The Post earlier this month she couldn’t believe it when she was told she couldn’t use words like “global warming.” “It was a surprise given what a clear threat climate change is to coral reefs and also to the state of Florida in general,” she said. And another, scientist Elizabeth Radke, who got her PhD at the University of Florida, said she had to remove the words “climate change” from a state report on climate change. [...]
When asked to amend [a] report, [Bart] Bibler said he refused. He refiled the report — along with an attachment showing an anti-Keystone symbol — with the climate change verbiage unchanged. Bibler was then suspended for two days and told to get a mental health exam before returning to work, according to the Public Employees for Environmental Protection, an advocacy group that has taken up his case.
The allegations, according to Bibler’s supporters in the environmental movement, suggest that he was suspended because the Department of Environmental Protection is willing to go to great lengths — even suspend an employee they admit is “exceptionally good” — to distance themselves from “climate change.” The charges also speak to the fear some employees have at getting caught using those words.
Click through to read this rundown by
Steve Bousquet, at The Tampa Bay Times of a recent staffer for Florida's Governor testifying about climate change, while struggling not to use that phrase:
Gov. Rick Scott's chief of emergency management, Bryan Koon, testifying Thursday before the Legislature, had a half-dozen chances to use the term "climate change."
But he would not say the C-words. [...]
"I used 'climate change,'" Clemens said, "but i'm suggesting that maybe as a state, we use the term 'atmospheric reemployment.' That might be something that the governor could get behind."
Senators roared with laughter, and the chairman, Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, almost literally fell out of his chair.
Head below the fold for more on the day's top stories.
Leonard Pitts Jr. says climate change is now added to a list of things Republican's can't say:
What we see in Scott, on the other hand, amounts to little more than a reality-avoidance scheme, a way of not having a debate he cannot win and would rather not have. The governor has previously tried denying the reality of global warming. He has used the "I'm not a scientist" dodge that the GOP adopted in lockstep last year. But this may be his most effective means yet: Commandeer the language, rendering discussion impossible.
It is not, however, the debate about global warming that threatens to submerge downtown Miami — or other coastal cities — but global warming itself. It turns out that, contrary to what we believed as children, if you ignore a thing, it doesn't go away. Often, it simply festers and gets worse. And as guns, condoms and vaginas continue to exist despite GOP silencing, so too does the threat to Florida, the country and the planet from rising seas and temperatures.
For a dose of reality and common sense, head on over to the White House blog and read
Secretaries Ernest Moniz, Gina McCarthy, and Denise Turner Roth present a new "federal sustainability plan":
President Obama signed an executive order that will help us stay on track to meet the new target pledged in China and ensure that the federal government leads by example as the United States moves boldly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while boosting clean energy. This new sustainability plan for the next decade directs federal agencies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2025. That means big cuts to the dangerous emissions driving climate change – and also big savings. In addition to 21 million metric tons of emission reductions – the same as taking 4.2 million cars of the road for a year — achieving this goal will save taxpayers up to $18 billion in avoided energy costs between 2008 and 2025.
Today’s action builds off of the strong progress the federal government has made over the past six years. Already, federal agencies have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent since the President took office, and increased the share of electricity consumed from renewable sources from 3 percent to 9 percent in 2013. Agencies have also made progress on a number of other fronts, like reducing water use by 19 percent since 2007. But there is much more work to do – and that’s what today’s announcement is all about.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney makes the point that climate change deniers can't be fiscal hawks:
[C]ongressional Republicans have worked time and again to restrict even the study of climate change. Last year the House passed a bill that would ban the Department of Defense from researching climate change and its national security implications. Another bill would have required the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to stop climate research. And just last week a Republican senator questioned NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the core mission of his agency, to which the administrator replied that we can't explore space "if the Kennedy Space Center goes underwater."
What is oddest about opposition to action to address climate change is the implications for another priority of the Republican party: deficit reduction. The bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach won't make extreme weather events driven by a changing climate go away, but it will ensure that our response is uncoordinated, less proactive, and far more expensive.
On a final note, over at Slate,
Phil Plait provides a detailed takedown of climate change denier Ted Cruz:
of all the bizarre nonsense Cruz said in that interview, what really got my teeth grinding was his comment about how it used to be called “global warming” but now we call it “climate change” because the evidence doesn’t support warming. That is at the level of weapons-grade irony. The idea to start calling it “climate change” came from a Republican strategist, in an effort to make it seem less threatening.
By saying that, Cruz has gone full Orwell: His own party made that change in phrase, but he’s accusing scientists of doing it.
Ted Cruz is a flat-out science denier. He’s unworthy of a leadership position, especially one that deals with science. Yet he’s chairman of the Senate subcommittee overseeing NASA, and he wants to run for president.
If there’s anything that can counteract global warming, it’s the chill in the air I feel from having to write that last paragraph.