Extreme Weather: Get Used To It

Here's what I'd be worried about, were I a climate-change denying politician, the head of a major oil company, or a professional obfuscator at a right-wing think tank: Sooner or later (and likely sooner the way things are going), a deteriorating climate is going to wipe away any shred of doubt that we are in a heap of trouble--and people are not going to be very happy with those who tried to fool them into thinking otherwise. You can see one of the aforementioned--Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil--in the fabulous short video below, blithely telling people that they can learn to adapt to the situation his corporation's greed has helped to bring about. Maybe in coming years we'll have a category of villain analagous to the war criminal--call them "climate criminals." Rex Tillerson will be prominent among them. And he'll have lots of company.

While we wait for the Climate Crimes Tribunals to get underway, take a few moments to watch this riveting film by Peter Sinclair of the invaluable blog, Climate Denial Crock of the Week. It puts the weather disasters so many have been suffering this year into the context that so many spend so many millions trying to get you to ignore. Share it with your friends. And welcome (in the apt phrase of Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson), to the rest of our lives. 

 

PAUL RAUBER is a senior editor at Sierra. He is the author, with Carl Pope, of the happily outdated Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress. Otherwise he is a cyclist, cook, and father of two. Follow him on Twitter @paulrauber.