A team of scientists and meteorologists funded in part by the National Science Foundation recently published an
article showing the link between global climate change and the awful drought in California. The work was published in the
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
The California drought has had extreme and terrible economic consequences. It is expected to cost California 17,000 jobs and as much as much as $2.2 billion.
The drought and this study linking it to climate change demonstrate the fact that climate change is not just an environmental hazard, but indeed a grave economic hazard for America and the whole world.
Those of us who spend most of our time focused on economic and political matters have an immediate and compelling need to look at the desperate economic consequences and job losses that will result from climate change.
Those who deny the fact and consequences of climate change belong in the same category of those who want to replace evolution with creationism in our schools, and those who think that the “wrong” sexual preference can be “cured.”
One scientist on the project said, “This isn’t a projection of 100 years in the future. This is an event that is more extreme than any in the observed record, and our research suggests that global warming is playing a role right now.”
For working people, the struggle to act against global climate change is part of the great and clear global class war. While the rich know they can sacrifice the future for the rest of us, they believe they can buy their escape.
Speaking of science deniers, how can any educated marketing decision-maker buy time on Rush Limbaugh?
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons