Eye Recommend --- The Pathological Denial of the Right

THE PATHOLOGICAL DENIAL OF THE RIGHT, from The Mahablog --
http://www.mahablog.com/2014/10/04/the-pathological-denial-of-the-right/comment-page-1/

This is the perfect follow-up to my post from yesterday that featured a sculpture commonly known as "Politicians Discussing Global Warming."  You can see that sculpture here.

"Many, many years ago, back when Ronald Reagan was primarily known as the host of Death Valley Days, I concluded that the essential difference between American liberals and conservatives was this:  Liberals identified real-world problems and at least attempted to implement solutions, albeit solutions that didn't always work.  Conservatives tended to be in denial that many real-world problems were happening at all until it bit them on the ass personally, and since they tended to be a privileged lot that didn't happen much.  Racial discrimination was not a problem for them, for example, so (in their minds) it couldn't possibly have been a real  problem for any one else, either...

...Of course, those long-ago days seem like the golden age of rationality compared to what we've got going on now.

(New York Times columnist) Gail Collins points out that many of the states being hit by the real-world consequences of global climate change are governed by politicians in denial of global climate change.  Collins notes that Louisiana is sinking into the Gulf at an alarming rate, and Gov. Jindal thinks climate change is just a 'Trojan horse' full of nefarious liberal ideas that would destroy freedom. However, Jindal has come out against forest fires.  Forest fires definitely are bad."

Last month, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) released his energy plan for America. He proposed more drilling along the coast of California and his state of Louisiana.  He said he couldn't be sure about global warming and would leave that to the scientists.  He did, however, say that improving the management of national forests to reduce large-scale fires may be helpful since the heat generated by those fires must surely be having some effect on our rising temperatures--that is, if they are rising.

The blog continues, quoting from the New York Times.  (Any underlines are mind.)

"In Louisiana, the most common way to visualize the state's existential crisis is through the metaphor of football fields.  The formulation, repeated in nearly every local newspaper article about the subject, goes like this:  Each hour, Louisiana loses about a football field's worth of land.  Each day, the state loses nearly the accumulated acreage of every football stadium in the N.F.L.  Were this rate of land loss applied to New York, Central Park would disappear in a month.  Manhattan would vanish within a year and a half.  The last of Brooklyn would dissolve four years later.  New Yorkers would notice this kind of land loss.  The world would notice this kind of land loss.  But the hemorrhaging of Louisiana's coastal wetlands has gone largely unremarked upon beyond state borders.  This is surprising, because the wetlands, apart from their unique ecological significance and astounding beauty, buffer the impact of hurricanes that threaten not just New Orleans but also the port of South Louisiana, the nation's largest; just under 10 percent of the country's oil reserves; a quarter of its natural-gas supply; a fifth of its oil-refining capacity; and the gateway to its internal waterway system.  The attenuation of Louisiana, like any environmental disaster carried beyond a certain point, is a national-security threat."

That may easily be one of the most frightening paragraphs I have read in a very, very long time.  And I wonder, if these statistics have been written about in newspapers across Louisiana, why aren't the people there outraged at the lack of urgency being expressed by state leaders?  Have Republican-dominated people become so brainwashed to hate everything "Obama" that they will embrace collective blindness in order to deny a cause supported by a Democrat--even at their own peril?

"And Gov. Jindal's response is to speak out against forest fires.  One wonders (although not much) to what extent the petroleum industry in the Gulf influences his opinions."

The blogger goes on to quote instances outside Louisiana; of entire towns disappearing under water in Alaska, the sewers in Miami Beach that back-up after heavy rains sending ocean water running down their streets.  

"The politicians in those states...if pushed, they just say they are not scientists...

...Part of the problem is that climate change denial has become a teabagger orthodoxy, and any Republican politician who so much as expresses willingness to consider the science is liable to primaried.   That, combined with energy industry money, pretty much guarantees that Republicans won't admit there is a problem until they are drowning.  And then they'll blame Democrats for a shortage of lifebuoys."