Trump's EPA chief suggests that Global Warming could be good for humans. No, really!

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, alluded earlier this week that global warming may be beneficial to humans, once again questioning the world’s leading scientists who have declared the phenomenon one of the greatest known threats to humanity. 

In an interview that aired Tuesday on KSNV, a Nevada television station, Pruitt questioned how accurately scientists could predict the planet’s ideal temperature in 2100, or even this year, and said humans had “flourished” in times of past warmth. 

“We know humans have most flourished during times of what, warming trends,” Pruitt said during the interview. “I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing. Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018?” 

He continued: “That’s fairly arrogant for us to think that we know exactly what it should be in 2100.”

This is not a parody folks, this is actually what he said. 

I have to wonder, is it arrogant of us to note that hurricanes and storms have dramatically increased in their destructive powers?

Or that people all around the country are dying from unprecedented drought conditions?

Is it arrogant to realize that much of the premier beach front property enjoyed by millions will soon be underwater, and that available land mass could be greatly reduced?

Is recognizing the rapidly increasing spread of disease and the loss of entire species of animals also arrogant of us?

Yeah, I think I see some arrogance as well.

And it is embodied by the asshole currently leading he EPA. 

If you are planning to come to Alaska in the winter, you might want to pack your shorts.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

If you want to escape the cold, should you head to ... Alaska? 

While most of the lower 48 states continue to endure a hideous deep freeze, Alaska has had an unusually warm start to winter. 

In fact, several locations in northern and central Alaska — such as Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Bettles, Kotzebue and McGrath — all had their warmest December on record, according to climatologist Brian Brettschneider. Fairbanks had its 2nd-warmest December. Over the first three weeks of the month, the city was a whopping 20 degrees above average. 

And midday Tuesday, at 48 degrees, Anchorage's Merrill Field Airport was warmer than almost the entire Lower 48 states, including cities such as Jacksonville, Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans. 

Anchorage had its fifth-warmest December: an average temperature more than 7 degrees above average.

Alaska wasn't just warm in December: Utqiaġvik (Barrow) had its second-warmest year on record. In fact, the tiny city on the state's north coast warmed so fast in 2017, the weather data from the city were automatically flagged as unreal and removed from the climate database, the Capital Weather Gang said. 

The weather up here is warming so rapidly that the permafrost is melting and whole towns are in danger of collapsing.

In Anchorage, where I live, I have only had to shovel my driveway about four times this winter and honestly the snow was so minimal that I probably could have skipped one of those.

Typically I would have shoveled more than a dozen times by now, and have snowdrifts five feet high along my driveway.

The other day somebody asked me if this was how winters usually are up here, and I replied with "They are now."

I don't know what this means long term, but we could see a say when people flock to Alaska to escape the freezing temperatures in the lower 48.

Won't that be a kick in the ass?

The effects of global warming.

Courtesy of National Geographic: 

When photographer Paul Nicklen and filmmakers from conservation group Sea Legacy arrived in the Baffin Islands in late summer, they came across a heartbreaking sight: a starving polar bear on its deathbed. 

Nicklen is no stranger to bears. From the time he was a child growing up in Canada's far north the biologist turned wildlife photographer has seen over 3,000 bears in the wild. But the emaciated polar bear, featured in videos Nicklen published to social media on December 5, was one of the most gut-wrenching sights he's ever seen. 

"We stood there crying—filming with tears rolling down our cheeks," he said.

Not so very long ago we had an administration that understood what has happening and was willing to do the hard work to make a change for the better.

Now this poor animal will undoubtedly be joined by scores of other animals who will die needlessly because humans are either too arrogant or too selfish to do anything to save them. 

Trump's White House releases report which states that human beings are responsible for all the recent global warming. Wait, that can't be right.

Courtesy of Think Progress: 

On Friday, the Trump administration released the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, the “authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States,” as the report states. 

What’s so stunning about the 600-page report, the work of scientists from 13 federal agencies, is that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) oversaw the final review and clearance process of the report — and yet the report details just how dangerous the Trump administration’s policy of climate science denial is to Americans. 

The National Climate Assessment (NCA) projects a devastated America — widespread Dust-Bowlification, 18°F Arctic warming, sea levels rising a foot a decade — on our current path of unrestricted carbon pollution. The report makes clear just how grave a threat are Trump’s plans to abandon the Paris climate deal, undo Obama-era climate rules, and boost carbon pollution. 

Indeed, the report explicitly states that if governments don’t meet their Paris targets, and then go beyond them, catastrophic impacts would be inevitable. 

The report “indicates that a path of inaction will truly lead to disastrous climate change impacts,” as climatologist Michael Mann said in an email to ThinkProgress, confirming a point he made when the New York Times published the leaked final draft in August. “Sadly, the Trump presidency has steered the U.S. toward this path.”

“Based on extensive evidence… it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” explains the NCA, the most comprehensive and detailed report ever done on climate change and its specific impact on America.

No wonder Trump wants to get rid of all the real scientists in the government agencies.

These guys are clearly relying on those liberal facts to make decisions, instead of the Trumpian talking points that everybody is supposed to have memorized. 

The costs of global warming are literally too expensive to ignore.

Courtesy of TPM: 

A non-partisan federal watchdog says climate change is already costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each year, with those costs expected to rise as devastating storms, floods, wildfires and droughts become more frequent in the coming decades. 

A Government Accountability Office report released Monday said the federal government has spent more than $350 billion over the last decade on disaster assistance programs and losses from flood and crop insurance. That tally does not include the massive toll from this year’s wildfires and three major hurricanes, expected to be among the most costly in the nation’s history. 

The report predicts these costs will only grow in the future, potentially reaching a budget busting $35 billion a year by 2050. The report says the federal government doesn’t effectively plan for these recurring costs, classifying the financial exposure from climate-related costs as “high risk.” 

“The federal government has not undertaken strategic government-wide planning to manage climate risks by using information on the potential economic effects of climate change to identify significant risks and craft appropriate federal responses,” the study said. “By using such information, the federal government could take the initial step in establishing government-wide priorities to manage such risks.”

And of course this does not calculate the cost of human life that will also rise exponentially as these devastating weather patterns worsen.

Just imagine for a minute how much less all of this would have cost if thirty years ago people had listened to those wacky climate scientists and started working toward weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, and moving toward renewable energy sources.

We could have literally saved billions and billions of dollars.

But then how would those poor oil companies have made their billions and billions of dollars?

Trump's Interior Department retaliates against whistle blower who revealed how climate change was affecting Alaska villages.

Courtesy of ADN:

An Interior Department executive-turned-whistleblower who claimed the Trump administration retaliated against him for publicly disclosing how climate change impacts Alaska Native communities resigned Wednesday. 

Joel Clement, a scientist and policy expert, was removed from his job by Secretary Ryan Zinke shortly after the disclosure and reassigned to an accounting position for which he has no experience. Clement was among dozens of senior executive service personnel who were quickly, and perhaps unlawfully, reassigned in June, but he was the only person who spoke out. 

Interior's inspector general is probing the reassignments to determine whether the process was legal. By law, executives are to be given ample notice of a job switch. Many of those reassigned say they were given no notice, according to attorneys who are representing some of the employees. The inspector general said Clement is on the list of employees being contacted, though Clement and his lawyer say that hasn't happened in the more than two months since the evaluation launched.

Zinke is looking to cut about 4,000 jobs at the Interior Department, and has publicly stated that about 30% of the employees there are "not loyal to the flag." Which we can assume means they are not buckling under to pressure to lie about scientific findings, or to push push the Trump agenda.

As for the affect of climate change in Alaska....

...trust me that those living in rural communities are all too aware of what it is doing to the state.

President Obama had an actual plan to help, and to rescue native communities in danger.

Donald Trump apparently just has people fired who point out the obvious.

The problem with climate change denying in the wake of devastating hurricanes.

Courtesy of the Guardian: 

As the US comes to terms with its second major weather disaster within a month, an important question is whether the devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma will convince Donald Trump and his administration of the reality of climate change. 

The president’s luxurious Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida may escape Irma’s wrath, but with the deaths of so many Americans, and billions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses, the costs of climate change denial are beginning to pile up at the door of the White House. 

Just days before Harvey formed in the Atlantic last month, Trump signed an executive order to overturn a policy, introduced by his predecessor Barack Obama, to help American communities and businesses become more resilient against the risks of flooding, which are rising because of climate change. 

But the merciless assault on the US mainland by Harvey and Irma should be forcing the president to recognise the consequences of his arrogance and complacency in dismissing the research and analysis carried out by scientists. 

The flooded streets of Houston and the wind-ravaged homes of south Florida bear the unmistakable fingerprint of extreme weather made worse by manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

I don't have a lot of confidence that Trump will suddenly see the light,  especially while the head of his EPA is suggesting that talking about climate change is "insensitive" to the victims of the storms, however it should instruct voters that they need to prioritize candidates who understand and respect science to offset the shitgibbon wiping poop all over the country's environmental protections.

Rush Limbaugh is now fleeing from the storm which he labeled a "liberal hoax."

After claiming Hurricane Irma was a liberal hoax, Rush Limbaugh evacuates South Florida pic.twitter.com/NVvceqZWwx

— Media Matters (@mmfa) September 8, 2017

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Rush Limbaugh didn't say the magic words, but on Tuesday he basically accused the media of creating fake news about Hurricane Irma, which is threatening Florida after hitting Barbuda and Antigua. The storm's 185-mile-per-hour winds tied the record high for any Atlantic hurricane making landfall.“These storms, once they actually hit, are never as strong as they're reported,” Limbaugh claimed on his syndicated radio show. He added that “the graphics have been created to make it look like the ocean's having an exorcism, just getting rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff.” 

Why would the media exaggerate the threat of a hurricane? Here's Limbaugh's theory: 

"There is symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and it’s related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses which prosper during times of crisis and panic, such as a hurricane, which could destroy or greatly damage people’s homes, and it could interrupt the flow of water and electricity. So what happens? 

Well, the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase. And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media. 

The local media, in turn, reports in such a way as to create the panic way far out, which sends people into these stores to fill up with water and to fill up with batteries, and it becomes a never-ending repeated cycle. And the two coexist. So the media benefits with the panic with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales, and the TV companies benefit because they’re getting advertising dollars from the businesses that are seeing all this attention from customers."

This was so egregious that even mild mannered weather dude Al Roker felt the need to call Limbaugh out on his shit.  

Do not listen to @rushlimbaugh when he says #Irma is not a dangerous #storm and is hype. He is putting people's lives at risk

— Al Roker (@alroker) September 6, 2017

To have @rushlimbaugh suggest the warnings about #Irma are #fake or about profit and to ignore them borders on criminal. #ShameOnRush

— Al Roker (@alroker) September 6, 2017

And now we see Limbaugh fleeing like a camp counselor in a horror movie from a storm that he claimed was being exaggerated to frighten people into buying stuff.

If he were a man of his convictions he would stay put as an inspiration to his followers.

Just think how many would show to his funeral.

Assuming they could find the body of course.

Well now Donald Trump's ignorance about climate change is directly impacting Alaska.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

The Trump administration has moved to dismantle climate adaptation programs including the Denali Commission, an Anchorage-based agency that is crafting a plan to safeguard or relocate dozens of towns at risk from rising sea levels, storms and the winnowing away of sea ice. 

Federal assistance for these towns has been ponderous but could now grind to a halt, with even those working on the issue seemingly targeted by the administration. In July, Joel Clement, an interior department official who worked with Alaskan communities on climate adaptation, claimed he had been moved to a completely unrelated position because of the administration’s ideological hostility to the issue. 

“We were getting down to the brass tacks of relocation [of towns at risk] and now work has just stopped,” Clement told the Guardian. He has lodged an official complaint over his reassignment.

“Without federal coordination from Washington DC, there isn’t much hope. This will take millions of dollars and will take years, and these people don’t have years. I think it’s clear I was moved because of my climate work. It feels like a complete abdication of responsibility on climate change.” 

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, 31 Alaskan communities face “imminent” existential threats from coastline erosion, flooding and other consequences of temperatures that are rising twice as quickly in the state as the global average. A handful – Kivalina, Newtok, Shishmaref and Shaktoolik – are considered in particularly perilous positions and will need to be moved. 

“It was clear from the start of the Trump administration that there was no interest in helping Alaskan communities, particularly coastal communities, adapt to climate change,” said Victoria Hermann, president of the Arctic Institute. 

“There’s now no liaison from Washington on the issue. The biggest loss has been momentum. It feels like the Obama administration was kickstarting something useful but now it has dropped dead.”

It should be noted that Alaska natives overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton, and in an unusual move even endorsed her during the 2016 campaign.

They knew what the danger was in electing Donald Trump, and they feared what he would do to the country and how it could negatively impact their lives.

And they were right to fear.

These villages are in a very dire situation, and without government help they may lose the home they and their ancestors have inhabited for literally thousands of years.

The Denali Commission in Anchorage is working right now to raise funds and help them, but as it turns out they are also targeted for elimination by the Trump Administration.

When President Obama came here in 2015 he saw the problems facing our native communities and he implemented plans to help them.

If Hillary Clinton had won this election you can bet she would have kept those promises made by her predecessor.

Donald Trump on the other hand wants to literally undo EVERYTHING President Obama set in motion to help this planet and her people.

Like I said, the Alaska natives knew. Too bad so many failed to listen.

Scientists leak climate change report before Donald Trump gets chance to kill it.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. 

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited. 

“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” a draft of the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New York Times. 

The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they wrote. 

The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.

The reason we are reading the report courtesy of the New York Times instead of on a government website is because he scientists fear it will never make it that far.

Scientists say they fear that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. 

That's right we now live in a country where important scientific information has to be leaked to the public before the current administration can block it from reaching us.

Donald Trump to remove America from Paris Climate Change pact.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

President Donald Trump plans to make good on his campaign vow to withdraw the United States from a global pact to fight climate change, a source briefed on the decision said on Wednesday, a move that promises to deepen a rift with U.S. allies. 

White House officials cautioned that details were still being hammered out and that, although close, the decision on withdrawing from the 195-nation accord - agreed to in Paris in 2015 - was not finalized. 

Trump, who has previously called global warming a hoax, did not confirm the decision in a post on Twitter, saying only, "I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days." 

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump was working out the terms of the planned withdrawal with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, an oil industry ally and climate change doubter.

This pact had virtually every nation on earth making a commitment to work together to deal with climate change, with only Syria and Nicaragua refusing to sign on.

And now America will join them in their shortsightedness.

This has caused Elon Musk, once deciding it was better to work with Trump than to leave him without intelligent input, to second guess that decision.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he would leave President Donald Trump's advisory councils if the US withdrew from the Paris Agreement.

"Don't know which way Paris will go, but I've done all I can to advise directly to POTUS, through others in WH & via councils, that we remain," Musk said on Twitter on Wednesday. 

Musk then said he would have "no choice" but to depart Trump's advisory councils if the US pulled out of the climate deal.

While I applaud Musk's integrity, I also worry that if all of the intelligent, ethical people abandon Trump, who is left to advise him?

Yeah, that's what has me worried.

British Prime Minister accused of being mole for Donald Trump.

Courtesy of The Independent:

Theresa May has been accused of being Donald Trump’s “mole” in Europe after leaked documents showed the UK attempted to water down EU policies designed to tackle climate change. 

While other European politicians have made clear to the Republican billionaire that his denial of climate science is a problem, the Prime Minister has remained resolutely silent on the issue. 

Her visit to Washington – when the two leaders were pictured holding hands – was widely regarded as an attempt to build a strong relationship with Mr Trump, despite concerns about his attitudes towards women, migrants, Islam, Vladimir Putin’s Russia and other issues. 

The leaked documents, obtained by Greenpeace’s Energydesk, show the UK tried to make a policy designed to improve energy efficiency – reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making goods cheaper to run for consumers – voluntary rather than mandatory.

It also essentially argued EU member states should be allowed to make no progress at all towards a 2030 target on renewable energy until the last moment.

I actually have very little difficulty in believing that Theresa May is a mole, I have not trusted that woman from day one.

But she is certainly NOT Donald Trump's mole, because Trump himself is also a mole.

No if she is a mole, she is Vladimir Putin's mole, just like Donald Trump.

The leader of Britain and the leader of the United States of America secretly working for Vladimir Putin, if that doesn't keep you up at night then I don't know what will. 

US and Saudi Arabia force G2O to drop language addressing financing action against climate change from joint statement.

G2O Summit 2015

Courtesy of Reuters:  

Opposition from the United States, Saudi Arabia and others has forced Germany to drop a reference to financing programs to combat climate change from the draft communique at a G20 finance and central bankers meeting. 

A G20 official taking part in the meeting said on Friday that efforts by the German G20 presidency to keep the wording on climate change financing had run into resistance. 

"Climate change is out for the time being," said the official, who asked not to be named. 

At their last meeting in July 2016 in the Chinese city of Chengdu, the G20 financial leaders said they encouraged all signatories of the Paris Agreement on climate change to bring the deal into force as soon as possible. 

But U.S. President Donald Trump, who took office in November, has called global warming a "hoax" concocted by China to hurt U.S. industry and vowed to unpick the Paris climate accord that is supposed to curb rising temperatures.

Under the Obama Administration we were leaders in fighting climate change, and now suddenly we are part of the problem. 

If you will excuse me I need to cradle my head in my hands in shame and frustration.

This is how the world sees our country now, so for all intents and purposes this is who we are.

Senator James Inholfe thinks it's good that the EPA lose funding because then they will stop "brainwashing" kids with propaganda (Facts).

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

Now that President Trump has proposed cutting the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency — which oversees clean air and water programs — by over 30 percent, Inhofe is excited that the agency will stop “brainwashing” the nation’s children with its science. 

“We’re going to take [out] all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that’s brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren’t true,” Inhofe said during a CNN interview on Thursday.

Three of Inhofe’s former staff members have taken positions in energy and environmental agencies under the Trump administration, including the EPA’s new chief of staff. Under the leadership of Inhofe’s staffers and fellow Oklahoman Scott Pruitt, the EPA has already started to refute it’s own science.

You may remember Inhofe as the guy who brought a snowball to the Senate floor to disprove Climate Change.

Inhofe is a long time puppet of the fossil fuel companies and has been arguing against Climate Change for decades.

HE in fact is the one who spreads propaganda, NOT the EPA.

And now his sycophants have infiltrated the very agency that they have been taught to despise.

Before they started spending millions to refute the science Shell Oil company made a little film about the catastrophic dangers of global warming.

Courtesy of The Guardian:

The oil giant Shell issued a stark warning of the catastrophic risks of climate change more than a quarter of century ago in a prescient 1991 film that has been rediscovered. 

However, since then the company has invested heavily in highly polluting oil reserves and helped lobby against climate action, leading to accusations that Shell knew the grave risks of global warming but did not act accordingly. 

Shell’s 28-minute film, called Climate of Concern, was made for public viewing, particularly in schools and universities. It warned of extreme weather, floods, famines and climate refugees as fossil fuel burning warmed the world. The serious warning was “endorsed by a uniquely broad consensus of scientists in their report to the United Nations at the end of 1990”, the film noted. 

“If the weather machine were to be wound up to such new levels of energy, no country would remain unaffected,” it says. “Global warming is not yet certain, but many think that to wait for final proof would be irresponsible. Action now is seen as the only safe insurance.” 

A separate 1986 report, marked “confidential” and also seen by the Guardian, notes the large uncertainties in climate science at the time but nonetheless states: “The changes may be the greatest in recorded history.” 

The predictions in the 1991 film for temperature and sea level rises and their impacts were remarkably accurate, according to scientists, and Shell was one of the first major oil companies to accept the reality and dangers of climate change.

Of course after this very accurate film was produced for public consumption Shell then apparently had a change of heart and spent millions essentially fighting back against the facts shared in the video, undermining renewable energy policies, and spending billions to conduct tar sand drilling.

It should also be noted that uncovered emails, going back as far as 1981, demonstrated that oil giant Exxon was also well aware that Climate Change was a real danger and that it was man made.

Essentially this just demonstrates that these oil companies have known for decades that Climate Change is caused by their own activities as fossil fuel companies and that they have aggressively worked to keep that knowledge out of the hands of the public while continuing to negatively impact our environment.

Photographer travels to Alaska to photograph polar bears in their natural habitat. What she finds shocks her.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Photographer Patty Waymire traveled to Alaska’s Barter Island from late September to early October with an express purpose: To take pictures of polar bears in their natural environment, surrounded by picturesque snow. 

But there was no snow to be found. 

“I was surprised when I arrived, to find there was no snow nor was the sea ice forming yet,” Waymire told The Huffington Post. “The locals told me that it was an unusually warm winter and that the snow would be late in arriving. It is one of the warmest winters on record.” 

So instead, she photographed the bears on patches of sand and dirt, or swimming in the Beaufort Sea.

I say this all of the time so pardon me for being redundant, but nobody living in Alaska has the luxury of denying the existence of global warming.

And to be fair it was not the scientists who were beating the drums about climate change up here, it was the native Alaskans.

They saw it before anybody, and they tried to tell people, but nobody seemed to want to listen until it was too late.

(P.S. You can visit the website for his wonderful photographer by clicking here.)

The Weather Channel's message to Breitbart: "Science doesn't care about your opinion."

Courtesy of The Weather Channel: 

Global warming is not expected to end anytime soon, despite what Breitbart.com wrote in an article published last week. 

Though we would prefer to focus on our usual coverage of weather and climate science, in this case we felt it important to add our two cents — especially because a video clip from weather.com (La Niña in Pacific Affects Weather in New England) was prominently featured at the top of the Breitbart article. Breitbart had the legal right to use this clip as part of a content-sharing agreement with another company, but there should be no assumption that The Weather Company endorses the article associated with it. 

The Breitbart article – a prime example of cherry picking, or pulling a single item out of context to build a misleading case – includes this statement: "The last three years may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare." 

In fact, thousands of researchers and scientific societies are in agreement that greenhouse gases produced by human activity are warming the planet’s climate and will keep doing so.

The Weather Channel then goes on to bury Breitbart under a mountain of scientific data and facts that demonstrate the inaccuracies of their claims. 

And that is the inherent problem.

The Weather Channel is using facts and data to reach a group that only responds to factless hyperbole prefaced by explosive headlines.

If the folks at Breitbart understood facts they would not be the folks at Breitbart.

We could dismiss all of this with a derisive chuckle, if it were not for the fact that Breitbart, along with Alex Jones, is now the place where our new president gets all of his "news."

No that cold chill you feel right now is not the end of global warming, but it could be the end of civilization as we know it.

In New Yorker article President Obama discusses how Facebook and the undermining of facts have negatively impacted the ability to deal with Climate Change.

President Obama visits what's left of Exit Glacier in Seward, Alaska.

Courtesy of The New Yorker:  

The new media ecosystem “means everything is true and nothing is true,” Obama told me later. “An explanation of climate change from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist looks exactly the same on your Facebook page as the denial of climate change by somebody on the Koch brothers’ payroll. And the capacity to disseminate misinformation, wild conspiracy theories, to paint the opposition in wildly negative light without any rebuttal—that has accelerated in ways that much more sharply polarize the electorate and make it very difficult to have a common conversation.” 

That marked a decisive change from previous political eras, he maintained. “Ideally, in a democracy, everybody would agree that climate change is the consequence of man-made behavior, because that’s what ninety-nine per cent of scientists tell us,” he said. “And then we would have a debate about how to fix it. That’s how, in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, you had Republicans supporting the Clean Air Act and you had a market-based fix for acid rain rather than a command-and-control approach. So you’d argue about means, but there was a baseline of facts that we could all work off of. And now we just don’t have that.”

So it appears that Facebook not only helped to undermine our democracy, but may also keep us from saving our planet.

So much for a simple platform for keeping in touch with friends and family.

In the possible good news department, it looks like Donald Trump might be softening his stance on Climate Change:  

Asked if thought human activity was linked to climate change; he responded: “I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much.” 

He also said he would keep an open mind on whether he would pull the US out of a landmark international climate change deal.

I also read that Trump has secretly met with the President a few times, so perhaps Obama is chipping away at his stupidity. 

P.S. By the way this New Yorker article is extremely good, and though I only talked about the climate change portion there is a whole lot more in there that is also quite interesting and informative. 

47 of the world's poorest countries are committed to going 100% green between 2030 and 2050.

Courtesy of BBC: 

Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Haiti, among others, say they will update their national plans on cutting carbon before 2020. 

Delegates here welcomed the move, saying it was "inspirational". 

These two weeks of negotiations have been overshadowed to an extent by reaction to the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. 

But in an effort to show that even the world's poorest countries are committed to dealing with global warming, the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) members have issued a promise to fully green their economies between 2030 and 2050. 

Termed the Marrakech Vision, the plan promises that the 47 members will: "strive to meet 100% domestic renewable energy production as rapidly as possible, while working to end energy poverty and protect water and food security, taking into consideration national circumstances".

Well look at that. The poorest nations on the planet are working to save the planet, while in America we just voted in a guy who thinks that climate change is a Chinese hoax. 

Once again the world moves forward, while America trips over its own feet.

Yep, that's about right.

I always find it somewhat amazing that conservatives refuse to believe in science they cannot see with their own two eyes and yet seem to accept Christianity without a shred of doubt.