New York Times Declares Climate Change Emergency (Nah, I Just Made That Up)

Credit: The New York Times (funnily enough, they don't see the irony)

Climate change has stripped me of all my sentimentality. And if you've known me since I was young, then you know how much of me that is.

It's a sad loss (not, in my view, a healthy shedding). Defined as "excessive tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia," my sentimentality is what connected me to the human condition. And yes, some might have seen my empathy and compassion as excessive because it did often make me feel sad. But I'm a people person and an extrovert — so my connections to others make me feel complete and worthwhile. (Yes, introverts of the world, we extroverts have our own existential demons.)

Oh, what am I trying to express today? I think it's that I'm finding it more and more exhausting and depressing to, on the one hand, recognize that the climate change emergency fight is pretty much lost already due to global apathy, while on the other hand still wanting to punch through that fatigue and depression to deal with the likes of T**** and the denier NGOs — and now The New York Times, as well?

Yes, I'm going to weigh in, briefly, on the NYT's hiring of an opinion columnist whose views diverge, shall we say, from the laws of physics.

1. Buddy, only you would call 0.85ºC, or about 1.5ºF of warming of the Earth (it's not "earth") since 1880 (most of it quite recently) "modest."

That modest warming unleashed natural disasters that killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. And now that "modest warming" is up to 1.38ºC (March 2017), and all indicators are on the rise. This is observation, not projection. Which part of "it's happening and you can see it if you only look" don't you grasp? And then you have the gall to say something about "the possible severity of its consequences." How cavalier, inhumane and unfeeling of you. 

2. "[O]rdinary citizens also have a right to be skeptical of an overweening scientism. They know — as all environmentalists should — that history is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power."

No, sir, ordinary, scientifically illiterate citizens do NOT have the right to question the science of climate change. Citizens who read and keep up to date on the research — especially the evidence of what's already happening — have the right to pose questions. But giving people who still think we were invented 6000 years ago the power to weigh in? No. If you need proof of human wreckage, turn on the nightly news — or better yet, a weather channel.


And "overweening scientism." What the hell is that, but the sound of a writer who likes his own voice?

C'mon, New York Times, you hired a skeptic (oh, no, this fellow doesn't "deny" climate change — he's a delayer, which is just as bad) as a fumbly, feeble attempt to make T**** supporters feel welcome? While campaigning on the importance of truth? Your opinionator is being irresponsible and dangerous, and his opinions and his writings are promoting progenycide. (If you think that's hyperbole, then know this: I WANT TO BE WRONG. But I don't want time to prove me wrong because by then, it will be too late.)

Please, if you want controversy, why not declare the emergency? That'll get people talking! And give the kids and their future a break.

And so, as my husband laments, not only is there no action on declaring this an emergency, but nor is there any sorrow, any sadness, any regret, any apology about what we're losing. There's just people like the NYT's opinion writer and his cleverness, while a whole lot of other people are snoring.