The right’s climate denial is awful. When they acknowledge climate, it’s even worse.
The problem isn’t just denying evidence, it’s only having crappy tools in your toolbox.
The town of Lytton in British Columbia Canada effectively ceased to exist this week. The heat dome driving up temperatures to an extraordinary level, the sort of thing climate scientists have been accurately predicting for decades, led them to break Canada’s all time heat record three days in a row: 46.1ºC (115º F) on Sunday, then 47.9ºC (118º F) Monday, and then 49.6ºC (121º F) on Tuesday. On Wednesday, an intense wildfire ripped rapidly through the town, obliterating most of the buildings. Climate scientists warned us that was coming, too. It’s not hard to understand. Higher heat evaporates moisture, drying forests into tinder ripe for conflagration, while it also adds to fire intensity. The whole town is pretty much gone, wiped off the map. The survivors are hardly the first climate refugees, nor will they be the last. There will be many more stories like this to come.
Just over three months earlier, the Conservative party of Canada held its annual convention, at which members vote on various policies. One such proposed policy would have simply stated that the party believes that climate change is real and that they are willing to…
