Pirate's Cove

Hot off their refusal to refer to the Washington Redskins as the Redskins (despite the fact that the rest of the paper will, and why would the opinion pages discuss football in the first place?), the Editorial Board announces their climate activism

THE NATIONAL debate on climate change has devolved.

By the late 1990s, big U.S. businesses were beginning to accept that greenhouse gases must be wrung out of the economy. In the 2000s, prominent Republicans such as Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.) proposed aggressive anti-
emissions policies. By 2008, the presidential candidates of both major parties favored strong national climate strategies. Regardless of who won that election, serious action seemed inevitable.

But Republicans later embraced a strategy of rote opposition to President Obama, and a faction that rejects the science of global warming dragged the GOP into irresponsible head-in-the-sand-ism. Democrats, meanwhile, proved unable to unite around a coherent, comprehensive climate strategy when they controlled Congress and the White House.

It could be that some of us have learned the reality of the “science”, and an almost 18 year pause and a failure of Warmist doom to appear highlights their failure. Opposition has nothing to do with Obama.

But there are reasons not to give up. The biggest is the urgency of action. As the U.S. debate has deteriorated, scientists’ warnings have become more dire. According to the authoritative Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , every region of the world faces serious risks , including sea-level rise or worsening heat waves, floods and wildfires — and those are consequences scientists can predict. Though poor nations along the equator may be hit hardest, U.S. analysts are beginning to quantify a variety of direct and negative effects climate change could have in our own country .

In other words, as their cult fails, their prognostications and talking points have become more hysterical and doomy.

All this explains why, understandable frustrations notwithstanding, the shape of the climate debate now and through the 2016 election is important. In the coming days we aim to contribute to that debate with a brief series of editorials. We will review the need to act; defend the EPA’s efforts but explain why they are not ideal; highlight several strategies that would work better; and show why it makes sense for the United States to take steps even though other nations have yet to do enough on climate change.

Will the Editorial Board allow all viewpoints? Doubtful. Warmist “science” cannot stand up to debate.

BTW, will the Editorial Board call for the dead tree editions to not include their opinions, since the papers are delivered using fossil fuels? Will they call for the A/C to be turned off in the Washington Post building?