What he said

If I had written a post today, I would have wished it to be this one.

The reality is that people who work themselves into a lather over deficits while ignoring the very real problem of climate change don't care a whit about the fate of future generations. They're simply demagoguing a largely soluble non-issue to create an excuse for handing social insurance programs over to Wall Street, and for shredding what little is left of discretionary spending in order to ensure a cheap, desperate labor force with low tax rates for the wealthy.

It really is sad that between tepid, no-backbone Democrats and lunatic Republicans we've gone so far backwards on this issue.

For the first time since 1988, presidential candidates did not mention the issue of climate change during debates.

Even as the world has seen 331 consecutive months with global temperatures over the 20th century average, even as extreme weather gets more intense and expensive, even as the Arctic sees unprecedented melt of sea ice, and even as scientists issue dire warnings about an approaching climate “tipping point,” the issue got no mention at all within three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate.

If you wish to familiarize yourself with the villains and fools who through a combination of greed, ideologically motivated ignorance, and intellectual dishonesty are determined to doom future generations to a planet less livable with less diversity of life, the Frontline episode "Climate of Doubt" is an excellent starting point.

(The biggest villian, to me, in that program is liar-for-hire Fred Singer, who looks the interviewer in the face and lies with a smirk. Over decades now he has been on the wrong side of the science of global warming, second hand cigarette smoke, Ozone layer depletion and cancer, and acid rain while he was taking money from institutions which profited from the deleterious effects their product had on the public and environment.)

If we didn't live in a Kabuki democracy in which a narrow set of issues is marginally debated by our political duopoly, the issue of climate change would have gotten national attention. But instead of allowing third party candidates have their voices heard, they are arrested and put in shackles.