TALKIN’ CLIMATE CHANGE

A sneaky new rhetoric is holding back progress on climate change

Levi Tillemann, December 34, 2015 (Quartz)

“…[T]oday the big danger is not climate-change deniers but those who serve up cynicism in insidious new forms…The environmental movement is now confronting people who admit the reality of climate change but scoff at attempts to combat it…[T]he argument that US efforts to address climate change are pointless unless China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, steps up…cedes climate-change leadership to the economic planners of China. It relies on a profoundly nihilistic sentiment…[A]ttacks on the economics or environmental shortcomings of technologies that address the long-term challenges of greenhouse gas emissions [make it seem as if New Energy technologies are] to blame…Skepticism sounds good in theory…[but not when it overrides] environmental concern…[J]ournalists have a right and duty to examine the potential effects and downsides of environmental policies, technologies, industries and business models…[But if] 99 reputable scientists say that climate change is being driven by humans for every one contrarian…the conversation shouldn’t be treated as a simple ‘he said, she said’ debate…” click here for more

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