Republican candidates embrace ignorance & global disaster
Five out of seven Republicans running in the primary for Illinois Governor "claim rising temperatures have nothing to do with pollution from cars, factories or power plants." A sixth declined comment.
Dan Proft outdid himself in pandering to the tea-bagger fringe when he called Al Gore and others "enviro-terrorists." So much for civil debate in the Republican primary. Someone should tell Dan that most politically-motivated violence in the U.S. comes from conservative hate-radio fans, not environmentalists.
Despite the shocker, I'm pretty impressed with how the State Journal-Register covered the Republican candidates who deny the science behind global warming.
Most of these articles become a "he said, she said" story with candidates from both parties telling their side. This one starts out that way but goes on to make basic statements of fact that are often missing from political articles on climate change.
The consensus among climate scientists is that global warming is real, man-made and a worsening problem.Last month, 18 scientific societies in the United States sent Congress a letter saying human activities are the “primary driver” behind global warming. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a group of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments — concluded global warming is an “unequivocal” threat and that most of the temperature increase is very likely due to greenhouse gases produced by people.
“We can and we do argue about details of what that means, but at the global scale I don’t think there is much question about it,” said Gabriel Vecchi, a climate researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I think the science is clear.”
Good job! This isn't a debate between Republicans and Democrats. It's a debate between the consensus of the scientific community on one side, and those who spread the distortions of fossil fuel interests on the other.
I'm glad to see this after the SJR skipped covering the 350.org rally, along with many other local environmental events, and has been running misleading editorials from industry interests without a rebuttal. Of course, the talk-radio crowd will dismiss the article as biased, like they do in response to all factual information that counters their views. As Stephen Colbert said, the truth has a well known liberal bias.
Every editor has to decide when educating the public is more important than being "balanced" if one side is clearly determined to distort reality. Too many former news organizations became useless because they accepted the idea that presenting balanced deception is more important than reporting accurate information. They share responsibility for why so many people no longer believe that man-made pollution contributes to global warming, just as they share responsibility for helping Bush mislead the nation into war by failing to challenge his lies.