Late breaking note: I know most folks are going to be fixated on the big news from Pennsylvania. The post below was obviously written earlier.
Few things tend to surprise me anymore, but the revelation that one of the most repressive and backward regimes on the planet is actually more scientifically enlightened than, say the Florida Republican party, still had the capacity to flummox me.
As reported by Rick Noack, writing for the Washington Post:
While Taliban beliefs are rooted in centuries-old Pashtun culture and an extreme interpretation of Islam, the government affirms that climate change is real, that it’s destroying God’s work and that those in the world who reject the truth of climate change need to get on board. The Taliban has asked imams in Afghanistan’s tens of thousands of mosques to emphasize during Friday prayers the need for environmental protection.
You read that right. Climate change, which the rightwing, white evangelical Christians in this country apparently think have the luxury of ignoring, now gets front-and-center treatment by the most repressive Islamic regime on earth.
Carbon footprints will weigh heavily on judgment day, said Kabul-based imam Farisullah Azhari. “God will ask: How did you make your money? And then he will ask: How much suffering did you cause in the process?” he said in an interview.
Meanwhile, as many are aware, in May Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill deleting the term “climate change” from his state’s statutes, even as obtaining affordable home insurance in the state becomes increasingly untenable.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation (HB 1645) on Wednesday that will erase several instances of the words “climate change” from state statutes and restructure the state’s fossil fuel-based energy policy that listed climate change as a priority when making energy policy decisions.
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“Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries,” DeSantis said on X on Wednesday afternoon. The message included a statement reading, “Radical green zealots want to impose their climate agenda on people through restrictions, regulations, and taxes.”
Donald Trump’s planned approach to the climate is similarly one of deliberate, willful ignorance. Under Project 2025, for example, Trump’s “plan” is to effectively accelerate the process of climate change by abandoning all efforts to stop it, and to increase domestic fossil fuel consumption to make the climate worse.
The Taliban are apparently divided on whether Allah or the regime’s foreign enemies — such as the U.S. — are responsible for the global heating that is destroying their ability to feed their population thanks to prolonged droughts and the resultant soil hardening (which also contributes to the occurrence of flash floods when it does decide to rain).
Either way, the consensus appears to be that “it is a religious duty to fight it.” As Noack notes, the Taliban’s approach to the environment has its historical roots in the Quran, which encourages the planting of trees, for example. However, at the Taliban’s Afghanistan Science Society, religious leaders now debate how to reconcile their ancient religious texts with modern climate science.
“Just like they invaded our country, they’ve invaded our climate,” Lutfullah Khairkhaw, the Taliban’s deputy higher education minister, said in his opening speech at the Jalalabad conference this year. “We must defend our climate, our water, our soil to the same extent we defend ourselves against invasions.”
Their defense strategy includes going out into the country to try to educate the mostly uneducated population about climate change and how to combat it. The article notes that because Afghanistan under the Taliban is essentially now a pariah state, it receives little foreign assistance in its efforts.
The Republican party is often rightly described as having devolved into an American Taliban of sorts. But it appears that in this respect, it’s actually worse.