THE HAMMER OF THOR… AND LIZ AND BARBRA AND GEORGE AND KAMALA
Lately, I’ve returned to my roots in investigative journalism. I’m trying to get to the bottom to a recurrent episode of collective madness where every four years a marauding posse of celebrities, media figures, and supreme court justices go rampaging through the political landscape w...
[I thought I would re-run this from 2003 because it is still appropriate today.]
Bush, Saddam and Climate Change: What Might Have Been
Wednesday, Jul. 16, 2003
As the hunt for Saddam's WMD begins to look as promising as OJ's search for the real killers, it becomes tempting to think about what might have been. If only, for instance, the Bush Administration had adopted its posture on global warming when considering the evidence justifying the invasion of Iraq — and vice versa. Instead of fighting a lonely battle amid hostility and near anarchy in Iraq, the U.S. might have let inspections and containment continue to hobble Saddam forever, while we mustered a real coalition to confront North Korea, which is all but televising its efforts to build nuclear bombs. Instead of dismissing the overwhelming evidence that climate is changing, and alienating the 111 nations that have ratified or acceded to the Kyoto Treaty, the Administration could be leading the way to promote the technologies and policies that will be necessary to come to grips with a real threat to civilization.
In attempts to muster support for the March invasion, the Administration took a worst case scenario view in estimating Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and then, in the State of the Union Address, President Bush credulously trumpeted bogus evidence that the Saddam was buying uranium from Niger. With climate change, however, the Bush Administration grasps at every whisper of doubt and demands a standard of proof that would make it difficult to prove that the earth orbits the sun.
In this world of what might have been, imagine a conversation between UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, and U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, last fall:
Blix: "We need at least a year to complete our inspections."
Powell: "Take 10 years; better yet let's wait until Saddam uses them."
Blix: "I'm not sure even the French will be willing to wait that long."
Powell: "Well the U.S. isn't going to waste money and risk lives on some hypothetical threat. Democracies don't invade other countries without incontrovertible proof of an imminent threat."
Blix: "And if we find that proof?"
Powell: "If it's a real threat, I'm sure Old Europe will unite behind us."
Imagine the conversation between VP Cheney and representatives of the coal industry:
Coal rep: "The science is uncertain!"
Cheney: "We'll be making tea by dipping Earl Grey in the Potomac before there's absolute certainty. When the threat is a potential calamity for the global food supply and economy, we have to act!"
Coal rep: "Fixing the problem will bankrupt the American economy."
Cheney: "Wrong, global warming will bankrupt the economy. Taking action will be the biggest stimulus since the end of WWII. Imagine the capital spending!"
Coal rep: "OK, OK, but the transition will still cost money. How much is the Administration prepared to spend?"
Cheney: "Will $3.9 billion a month help? It's a figure we think we can sell to Congress for dealing with extraordinary threats to stability."
The American Meteorological Society names Fire and Flood its book of the year for 2023, awarding it the Louis J Batton Author's Award.
"Eugene Linden wrote his first story on climate change, for Time magazine, in 1988; it was just the beginning of his investigative work, exploring all ramifications of this impending disaster. Fire and Flood represents his definitive case for the prosecution as to how and why we have arrived at our current dire pass, closing with his argument that the same forces that have confused the public’s mind and slowed the policy response are poised to pivot with astonishing speed, as long-term risks have become present-day realities and the cliff’s edge is now within view.
Starting with the 1980s, Linden tells the story, decade by decade, by looking at four clocks that move at different speeds: the reality of climate change itself; the scientific consensus about it, which always lags reality; public opinion and political will, which lag farther still; and, arguably, most importantly, business and finance. Reality marches on at its own pace, but the public will and even the science are downstream from the money, and Fire and Flood shows how devilishly effective monied climate-change deniers have been at slowing and even reversing the progress of our collective awakening. When a threat means certain but future disaster, but addressing it means losing present-tense profit, capitalism's response has been sadly predictable.
Now, however, the seasons of fire and flood have crossed the threshold into plain view. Linden focuses on the insurance industry as one loud canary in the coal mine: fire and flood zones in Florida and California, among other regions, are now seeing what many call climate redlining. The whole system is teetering on the brink, and the odds of another housing collapse, for starters, are much higher than most people understand. There is a path back from the cliff, but we must pick up the pace. Fire and Flood shows us why, and how." From Catalog Copy
