Year 3, Month 5, Day 24: We Can Share…

The Idaho Statesman discusses the, um, intellectual foundations of the partisan divide on climate change:

The science that has driven and dominated this debate is the “psychology of persuasion.”

The Heartland Institute is an organization now leading the climate-skepticism campaign, after it ended its efforts to raise doubts about the connection between smoking and cancer. Recently, the group pushed its case with billboards citing “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Charles Manson and Fidel Castro as examples of people who believe in global warming.

It’s not surprising that with the most famous promoter of climate change being Al Gore, the former Democratic candidate for president, many Republicans see the issue in partisan terms.

Generic “Republicans are idiots” screed. Sent May 14:

Devaluing expertise has long been a feature of conservative politics and government. As far back as the McCarthy-era purge of “old China hands” from the State Department, Republican politicians have exploited anti-intellectualism in American culture for their own electoral advantage, reaching new lows in the past few decades with the rise of ideologically slanted news outlets and right-wing “think tanks” dedicated entirely to the avoidance of inconvenient realities.

Call it “veriphobia” — fear of truth — and its greatest potential for long-term disaster lies in the area of climate change and its effects. Future historians will point to the psychological mechanisms of denial as key elements in our national failure to address the climate crisis. Do NASA studies indicate the planet is warming? Do climate scientists agree on the human causes of the greenhouse effect? Republicans would sooner defund NASA and vilify climatologists rather than admit error.

Warren Senders