Month 10, Day 23: Election of the Living Dumb

Colorado senate candidate Ken Buck is a climate zombie, reports the Denver Post, although not quite in those terms. I figured I’d better insert the meme.

Ken Buck is a fine specimen of a “climate zombie,” a politician permanently possessed by the idea that climate change cannot be caused by humans. Buck’s mentor in this is, of course, the ur-Zombie, Oklahoma’s James Inhofe, whose mistrust of expertise has made him a worldwide laughingstock. With Colorado’s forests in grave danger from the side-effects of global warming (droughts, fires, beetles), one would hope that both parties’ Senate candidates could acknowledge the very sturdy relationship between scientific predictions and observable facts. While climatologists deliver warnings in the language of science (a phrase like “robust correlation” translates as “we’re facing a world of hurt unless things change PDQ”), politicians mock them in the language of ignorance (a freak snowstorm in Washington invalidates decades of research and analysis). As compelling evidence for anthropogenic global warming mounts, climate zombies like Ken Buck threaten to derail the action we desperately need.

Warren Senders