Frustrated by a sense of global mispriorities, I blurted out some snarky and mildly regrettable tweets on the lack of attention to climate change in the tech industry (Twitter being a sublime medium for the snarky and regrettable). Climate change is the problem of our time, it’s everyone’s problem, and most of our problem-solvers are assuming that someone else will solve it.
The Barroom Brawl in St. Louis
for all of his repeated claims that he would be the president of everybody, Donald Trump doubled down with his base, repeating all of right-wing radio’s talking points: emails, conspiracy theories, Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.
.. The many television commentators, who have served us so badly throughout this election season, will judge him on these points and not on his constant lies, shameless distortions (“I was against the war in Iraq”), messianic pretensions (“Captain Khan would be alive today if I’d been president”)
.. Perhaps the worst part was that, during the warmest fall in recorded history, there was not a single question on climate change, and only one on energy, at the very end of the debate. Just the same old trivia that has dominated the last year and a half of this interminable campaign. We, the media, have failed the country in this election.
xkcd: A Timeline of Earth’s Average Temperature
When people say “The Climate Has Changed Before” these are the kinds of changes they’re talking about.
When a Crackpot Runs for President
There are crackpots who believe that the earth is flat, and they don’t deserve to be quoted without explaining that this is an, er, outlying view, and the same goes for a crackpot who has argued that climate change is a Chinese-made hoax, who has called for barring Muslims and who has said that he will build a border wall and that Mexico will pay for it.
.. We owe it to our readers to signal when we’re writing about a crackpot. Even if he’s a presidential candidate. No, especially when he’s a presidential candidate.