Year 3, Month 1, Day 27: Actually, It’s Just More Hippie-Punching

The Salt Lake Tribune (UT) runs an AP article on the anti-environmental stance of the GOP presidential field:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. • Four years after the GOP’s rallying cry became “drill, baby, drill,” environmental issues have barely registered a blip in this Republican presidential primary.

That’s likely to change as the race turns to Florida.

The candidates’ positions on environmental regulation, global warming as well as clean air and water are all but certain to get attention ahead of the Jan. 31 primary in a state where the twin issues of offshore oil drilling and Everglades restoration are considered mandatory topics for discussion.

“It’s almost like eating fried cheese in Iowa,” said Jerry Karnas of the Everglades Foundation. Drilling has long been banned off Florida’s coasts because of fears that a spill would foul its beaches, wrecking the tourism industry, while the federal and state governments are spending billions to clean the Everglades.

Though most expect the candidates to express support for Everglades restoration — as Mitt Romney did in his 2008 campaign — environmentalists are noting a further rightward shift overall among the GOP field. The candidates have called for fewer environmental regulations, questioned whether global warming is a hoax and criticized the agency that implements and enforces clean air and water regulations.

This article is all over the place, so I’m going to build a few more letters on it over the next 36 hours. Sent January 23:

Since the early fifties, when a McCarthy-era Red Scare purged “China hands” from State Department (with predictably dismal consequences for US policy in Southeast Asia over the next twenty years), conservatives have built a electoral and media strategy by exploiting and nurturing a long-standing strain of anti-intellectualism in American life.

Climate scientists make a terrific target. For accurately reporting their findings and suggesting ways to respond to a genuine threat, they’ve been rewarded with mockery, hate mail, and death threats — while their legitimate concerns are derided by politicians whose electoral aspirations make it impossible for them to acknowledge genuine expertise. The candidates’ inability to address the scientific reality of global climate change is a symptom of their party’s lengthy effort to reduce intellectual influence on the crafting of policy. When the only experts the GOP respects are their political strategists, it’s no wonder their presidential field lacks intellectual heft, and it’s no wonder environmentalists are worried.

Warren Senders