Conserving Insanity

IN PHOENIX, the temperature has risen to nearly one hunred and twenty degrees for how many consecutive days? Twenty, isn't it? In most part of the United States, there is either a prolonged drought, or it rains for days and there is massive flooding, with great loss of life and property. The weather, over a long period of time, is called "climate", and just as scientists have been predicting for decades, the weather has become and is becoming ever more extreme. Science, as usual, got it right. And yet, within and throughout the conservative community, denial of climate science and cimate change remains unfazed. The latest nonsensical denial is the claim that "it was hotter in the nineteen thirties, the dustbowl era, than it is today." That is, of course, untrue, like nearly all conservative lies and beliefs. Statistics, the true cliche goes, do not lie. We have the numbers, all the recorded temperatures from every location in North America and indeed the world, dating back decades, when meteorological record keeping became standard proceedure. You scarcely want to think about the summer heatwaves, droughts, sever floods, and severe storms to come in future years. It is only going to get worse, because we haven't done enough soon enough. Actually, with the friction caused by right wing resistance to action, resistance to the economic reforms necessary to fight and reverse climate change, humanity is so far behind schedule that it may be too late, by being too little. A progressive program of concerted action, undertaken decades ago,would by now have begun the process of climate mitigation, and such a program has been front and center of the progressive agenda for decades. People insufficiently conversant with political reality and fond of saying "both sides are deeply flawed". No, "both sides" are not flawed, wrong, or bad. Not with regard to climate change. It may sound fair and cozy and convenient to attribute blame for our various societal messes equally, so doing may give one a feeling of being noble and fair minded - but it is dead, straight up wrong. We proclaim the virtue of "giving credit where credit is due". Its time to place blame where blame belongs.Only by identifying errors and their source can they be corrrected.