The North Carolina state legislature has adopted new guidelines to address the impact of climate change on their state. Namely by banning the use of the term “climate change” or the term “sea level rise” unless “authorized.” In section 2 of their House Bill 819 the prohibitions are laid out very clearly—no state agency is to use those terms when studying, commenting on, or otherwise addressing the impact of…well, you know.
Virginia is following suit. At least there an answer as to why is offered. Supposedly, such terms as climate change and sea level rise are “liberal code.”
Excuse me? Code for what?
The irony astounds. This is a Republican effort. For years we have listened to conservatives bitch and complain over P.C. language, as if the prohibition of certain terms was some kind of absurd attempt to pretend a specific reality doesn’t exist. P.C. has become conservative “code” for liberal bullshit. But now, conservatives are doing the same damn thing and, I assume, thinking that the elimination from official use of certain objectionable words somehow alters reality.
The world turns, the circle comes back on itself.
The entire conservative objection to climate change science is based entirely on a constituent-driven refusal to acknowledge a reality that might require people—mainly people with interests in certain industries—to change the way they do things. That’s it. That’s the problem right there. We—and believe me I do not let moderates or even some liberals off the hook—do not wish to change our lifestyles. *
The science is in. Climate change is real. The oceans are rising (because a lot of well-documented melting is going on in both the Arctic and the Antarctic) and the world is about to look different. Temperature rise will cause disruption in agriculture, alterations in water table distribution, and weather patterns we are no used to.
This is a fact. It is not a liberal plot to undermine free enterprise.
The much-vaunted pragmatism that has been a hallmark of conservative posturing for decades has apparently failed to serve them. They seem to be trying to wish reality away instead of “manning-up” and facing the world on its own terms. I’m sorry, I find this laughable.
The state legislature of Indiana once attempted to legislate the value of Pi, making it equal to 3 instead of 3.14 etc, claiming the actual value was an affront to nature and god. The bill didn’t get out of committee, I believe, it never came to a vote, but somebody wrote the damn thing, spending tax-payer money on an attempt to deny reality. They didn’t succeed.
This did. At least, it got out of committee and became law.
I wonder what they’ll call it when their coastline is erased from “periodic flooding” that doesn’t go away?
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* I know, the “real” issue is anthropogenic climate change. They don’t like the idea that “we” have caused this. But damn, you can argue about where it comes from all you want. That’s not the same as claiming it’s not happening.
Personally, while I have no problem accepting that human activity has contributed to the current conditions, I’m not sanguine about our capacity to do anything useful about it. If we shut every polluting factory down tomorrow, stopped driving cars, and basically ended our industrial civilization, people—all seven billion of us—are still going to burn things to survive. We have to. I seriously doubt at this point anything we do will stop the transformations we’re seeing, at least not in time to make any difference to anyone now living. The fact is there are too many of us and we’re making more. The sheer consequence of biomass and its activities has an impact. So I think we should be paying attention to how to live in the world that’s coming.
I also think we should stop sacrilizing reproduction and making more just for the sake of making more.
Mark is, as always, evenhanded, but I would argue that there is a big difference between using (primarily) social pressure to change linguistic usage (persuading organizations or publishers to use gender-neutral language, discouraging public and inflammatory use of racial slurs, etc.) and legislating–even criminalizing–speech and thought that disagrees with reactionary orthodoxy–which is what has happened in Arizona with ethnic studies, almost in Missouri with “don’t say gay,” and now in North Carolina. And while Mark is generous in his moderate treatment of the legislature in NC, I would argue that the person who wrote that legislation and everyone who voted for it must be considered not just politically extreme, but certifiably insane. (I love the story about ‘pi,’ which I had not heard before. That is more in the realm of goofball nonsense and almost lovable.) I would argue that this North Carolina law is part of a noticeable pattern of efforts to criminalize ideas on the part of the radical right wing, and that may please (surely WILL please) the pathetic Bill O’Reilly’s of the world, but should be a matter of serious concern for its longrange implications.
Tom, I can’t disagree. Sometimes I do let my gut reaction dictate the tone of my posts, but in the name of some kind of discourse…
Well, anyway, what you suggest I find very much the case.