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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:16:26 GMT
Political ideology affects energy-efficiency attitudes and choicesPro-Environment Light Bulb Labeling Turns Off Conservative Buyers, Study Finds Why Do Conservatives Like to Waste Energy? | Mother Jones *
This research demonstrates how promoting the environment can negatively affect adoption of energy efficiency in the United States because of the political polarization surrounding environmental issues. Study 1 demonstrated that more politically conservative individuals were less in favor of investment in energy-efficient technology than were those who were more politically liberal. This finding was driven primarily by the lessened psychological value that more conservative individuals placed on reducing carbon emissions. Study 2 showed that this difference has consequences: In a real-choice context, more conservative individuals were less likely to purchase a more expensive energy-efficient light bulb when it was labeled with an environmental message than when it was unlabeled. These results highlight the importance of taking into account psychological value-based considerations in the individual adoption of energy-efficient technology in the United States and beyond.
Read more: www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/1870799-do-conservatives-willfully-pollute-destroy-planet-5.html#ixzz5YEUVUdKB
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:16:57 GMT
Conservative controlled states and all RED states ought to be disqualified from receiving aid from disasters directly caused by global warming...i.e. more frequent, greater than usual weather events, flooding, ocean rise events, prolonged droughts, starvation, pandemics and epidemics, etc. And their politicians and propaganda vehicles like FOX, WND, Evangelical programming, etc. need to be held accountable legally.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:17:24 GMT
Conservatives..."this madness is YOURS!"
Enough said...look what the conservatives of Krypton did....they should have listened to Jor El, the Liberal scientist who states to the conservatives after warning them for a final time "this madness is YOURS!" and on Earth, we might say the same thing to our own conservatives....
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:19:21 GMT
So now they are finally admitting to why they are destroying the planet. Power, Politics and $$$. Just as I thought.
Mike Pompeo Claims Melting Sea Ice Could Create 'Opportunities for Trade' — and Draws Internet IrePeople Char Adams,People•May 7, 2019 news.yahoo.com/mike-pompeo-claims-melting-sea-160300332.html Mike Pompeo Says Melting Sea Ice Could Be Good for 'Trade'
Mike Pompeo Claims Melting Sea Ice Could Create 'Opportunities for Trade' — and Draws Internet Ire
Mike Pompeo Says Melting Sea Ice Could Be Good for 'Trade'
Politicians and grass roots organizers alike have long warned of the disastrous effects of climate change, but in statements that have sparked backlash on social media, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the change could be good for the economy.
Pompeo, 55, spoke at a meeting of the Arctic Council on Monday in Rovaniemi, Finland, about the Arctic and its declining levels of sea ice, boasting that the deteriorating region “is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance.”
“It houses 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil, 30 percent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore,” Pompeo said.
“Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade,” he continued. “This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days. Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st century Suez and Panama Canals.”
Scientists have determined that the Arctic is warming faster than any other region, with the ice covering its waters shrinking by almost 13 percent each decade, NASA reported. Scientists say global warming is largely to blame for the disappearing sea ice, according to the New York Times, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program has noted that the loss of sea ice promotes warmer global water temperatures.
The group also notes that “the loss of ice increases the risk of erosion along coastlines and changes the presence of marine species in certain areas, affecting commercial fish stocks and the economies of some coastal towns,” according to CNN.
RELATED: Donald Trump Says ‘We Need’ Global Warming as Extreme Cold Weather Approaches the Midwest people.com/politics/donald-trump-need-global-warming-extreme-cold-midwest/
A recent report from the National Snow & Ice Data Center found in just one year’s time, there were 89,000 fewer square miles of sea ice in the Arctic, according to CNN.
The strong and stable partnership between Arctic nations ensures that the region is and remains peaceful. At @arcticcouncil, we are proud to work closely with Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and indigenous groups to govern the Arctic. pic.twitter.com/jvgson6xlK
— Secretary Pompeo (@secpompeo) May 7, 2019 Still, Pompeo said the endangered region can promote “renewed competition” between the U.S., China and Russia, adding that President Donald Trump is “committed to leveraging resources in environmentally responsible ways.”
“The United States is achieving our reductions the American way: through scientific work, through technology, through building out safe and secure energy infrastructure, and through our economic growth, and doing it in a way that doesn’t stifle development with burdensome regulations that only create more risk to the environment,” he continued.
Pompeo did not use the phrase “climate change” in his remarks, later telling a Finnish news publication that “we should put all our emphasis on is outcomes,” CNN reported.
His comments did not go over too well on Twitter. One social media user chalked Pompeo’s comments up to “human greed,” while another added, “Everything isn’t about money. Everything isn’t about winning.”
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:19:51 GMT
Trump Curbs the Circulation of Science May 31, 2019
LISTEN www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/otm/otm053119_cms939367_pod.mp3
( AP Photo/Michael Probst, File / AP Images )
Last weekend, The New York Times reported on a host of aggressive new obstacles placed by Trump administration to stymie the dissemination of federal climate research. One new rule prevents certain agencies from publishing findings after 2040. A second will omit the National Climate Assessment's "worst case scenario" projection. And finally, a panel of climate deniers will oversee and regulate the release of all federally funded climate research.
In this interview, Bob speaks with Kate Aronoff, who recently wrote about these regulations for The Guardian. She explains how these alarming new restrictions fit into the Trump administration's larger pattern of limiting public access to the truth about the climate.
This is a segment from On the Media’s May 31st, 2019 program, Climate Obscura.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:20:24 GMT
Here is an example of how Conservatives and their Libertarian svengalis sold out American secrets and ingenuity for a buck. It was the Republicon Free Market Free Trade SCAM pushed on us since Reagan by Libertarian loving globalists to get their greasy grubs on the Chinese market that they were willing to give up technology for $$$$. China DIDN'T steal it....Republiconservatives GAVE it to them. And unfortunately Clinton and Obama bought into those ideas AGAINST the wishes of their party. As a result the pollution coming out of China will blanket the world and add to global warming. The Republican Party is nothing more than a front group for billionaires and transnational corporations and conservatism is the anointed cult created to do their bidding. www.takeoverworld.info/conservatism.htm www.Takeoverworld.info/overclass.htmlAnother way China is ripping us offPublished: June 24, 2019 11:08 a.m. ET U.S. does the heavy lifting in the Persian Gulf—while China benefits By PAUL BRANDUS COLUMNIST www.marketwatch.com/story/another-way-china-is-ripping-us-off-2019-06-20?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
Iranian troops take part in the "National Persian Gulf day" in the Strait of Hormuz, on April 30, 2019. - The date coincides with the anniversary of a successful military campaign by Shah Abbas the Great of Persia in the 17th century, which drove the Portuguese navy out of the Hormuz Island, after which is named the waterway which separates the Gulf from the Sea of Oman.
In the old days, it would have been absolutely essential for the United States to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz—through which a third of the world’s crude oil passes daily—remained open. It is less essential now, thanks to the oil shale revolution, which has once again made America an oil giant. We now produce more oil than Saudi Arabia and more than the Russians.
Meantime, China has become not only the biggest consumer of energy in the world, it has become, since 2014, the biggest importer of oil in the world. So why isn’t China—which has an increasingly powerful blue water navy and can project its might with growing ease—doing more to protect the flow of oil? Its oil?
So why is the United States doing the heavy lifting in the Persian Gulf? If war breaks out with Iran, it’ll be the U.S. Navy, American men and women in uniform, and the American taxpayer that will bear the burden. Not China—which needs Mideast oil more than we do.
Related: Strait of Hormuz: Oil ‘choke point’ in focus as U.S.-Iran tensions rise following attacks on tankers www.marketwatch.com/story/strait-of-hormuz-in-spotlight-after-oil-tankers-attacked-near-worlds-most-sensitive-crude-transport-checkpoint-2019-06-13
President Donald Trump on Monday made a similar point, chiding China (and Japan) for not contributing. X See Also Trump Signs Executive Order Imposing New Sanctions on Iran
Read: President calls on China to patrol Strait of Hormuz, to sign executive order on health pricing www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-today-president-calls-on-china-to-patrol-strait-of-hormuz-to-sign-executive-order-on-health-pricing-2019-06-24
Professor James Holmes of the U.S. Naval War College says the Chinese are getting a free ride.
“The United States has always thought of itself as the guardian of maritime security. So if China sees the U.S. taking care of security of Gulf oil supplies, then it will be glad to let us do so,” he says.
Holmes—who as a naval officer fought in the first Persian Gulf War in 1991—adds that not only does China get that free ride from us in the Gulf, it frees up resources for it to focus on other priorities in the Western Pacific and South China seas—interests that directly challenge the United States.
This two-for-one benefit for Beijing puts the United States in an odd position. We can’t afford to keep being the world’s policeman—so says President Trump. We’ve been tossing money away in the Middle East for decades he says, with little to show for it. Others, he keeps saying, should do more. Those comments are usually directed at our NATO allies. But China—with its economy thirsty for oil—shouldn’t it be doing more too? It can clearly afford to do so.
Also read: Iran says it shot down U.S. drone amid rising tensions www.marketwatch.com/story/iran-says-it-shot-down-us-drone-amid-rising-tensions-2019-06-19
On the other hand, the United States is now transitioning to what could be a Cold War-style relationship with China. We’re talking about a country that—unlike the old Soviet Union—is four times our size in terms of population, growing about twice as fast (even after slowing down in recent years), and hellbent on overtaking us in the frantic race to dominate the technologies of this still young century: artificial intelligence, 5G, robotics, aerospace, biopharma and more. More American policymakers are coming around to the view that China is becoming a strategic rival—the only true threat we have, and therefore we must make a greater effort to limit its rise. So shouldn’t we be trying to contain it as best we can?
That’s the rub. China can do more. But do we really want it to? If the answer’s no, then we’re stuck with the tab. And so here we are, protecting their lifeblood—oil CL.1, -0.12% —so they can get stronger at our expense.
Holmes, who heads the Naval War College’s prestigious Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy, says U.S. policymakers are undergoing—pardon the pun—a sea change with regard to how China is seen in the U.S. national security establishment.
“For a long time, it wasn’t obvious that China’s rise was going to be a threat,” he says. “We thought China would be a pushover for way too long. Even as late as the Bush administration, we were hoping that China could be brought in as a responsible maritime stakeholder and help maintain the basic world order as we presided over it.” It has only been fairly recently, he adds, that Americans figured out that “China does not see things that way and I think we’re still adjusting.”
Meantime, for all the talk about how American power is on the decline in the world, consider this: We are now such a force in the oil markets, that recent attacks on tankers on the Gulf haven’t impacted prices a bit. Brent crude, for example, is actually lower than it was last month. Walter Russell Mead, writing in the Wall Street Journal, notes that, “ven five years ago, the U.S. could not force Iran out of world oil markets without causing a devastating spike in oil and gas prices that would destabilize the world economy.”
That’s not the case today. So should we be sticking our necks out in the Gulf for the benefit of the Chinese? I say no.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:20:54 GMT
The Climate Deregulation Tracker identifies steps taken by the Trump administration and Congress to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures. The tracker is linked to our database of climate change regulations. Read more → columbiaclimatelaw.com/resources/climate-deregulation-tracker/about/
Key Updates: Date Action Explanation Agency 2019-06-21 CEQ Issues New Draft Guidance on Consideration of Climate Change in NEPA Reviews Guidance CEQ 2019-06-19 EPA Publishes Final Rule to Repeal and Replace Clean Power Plan Regulatory action EPA 2019-05-22 BLM Publishes Draft Environmental Assessment for Lifting Coal Leasing Moratorium Agency order BLM 2019-05-01 DOE Proposal Would Make It Easier for Appliance Manufactures to Seek Interim Waivers from Efficiency Test Requirements Regulatory action DOE 2019-04-10 Trump Issues Order Aimed at Expediting Approvals of Energy Infrastructure Executive Order White House 2019-04-10 President Trump Issues Order on Transboundary Permits Executive Order White House 2019-03-15 BLM Opens 9 Million Acres of Sage Grouse Habitat for Drilling and Mining Management Plan BLM, DOI 2019-02-07 DOE Proposes Repeal of Light Bulb Efficiency Regulation Regulatory action DOE 2018-12-28 BLM Proposes Oil and Gas Leasing Program in Arctic Refuge Management Plan BLM 2018-12-07 BLM Proposes to Open 9 Million Acres of Sage Grouse Habitat to Drilling and Mining Management Plan BLM Note: agencies listed here include those undertaking actions and those that are affected by actions. All updates >> Related News: Trump’s EPA just replaced Obama’s signature climate policy with a much weaker rule (June 19, 2019) BLM Releases Draft Environmental Assessment for Lifting Coal Leasing Moratorium (May 24, 2019) Judge Delivers Major Setback to Trump Policy to Increase Coal Mining on Federal Land (April 19, 2019) States pick up Trump’s coal mantle (April 15, 2019) Federal court dismisses Trump administration’s repeal of coal, oil valuation rule (April 15, 2019) Report – Climate and Health Showdown in the Courts: State Attorneys General Prepare to Fight (March 2019) Trump Administration Loosens Sage Grouse Protections, Benefiting Oil Companies (March 18, 2019) Trump Climate Deregulation Could Boost CO2 Emissions by 200 Million Tonnes a Year: Study (March 5, 2019) Federal court rebukes DOE efforts to freeze regs (February 28, 2019) Decision (February 22, 2019) Bill aims to protect Obama standards from Trump (February 6, 2019) EPA highlights decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and deregulation in annual review (January 29, 2019) Temporarily Postponed: Public Hearing on Proposed NSPS for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from New, Modified, and Reconstructed EGUs (January 24, 2019) Study sees CO2 ‘rebound’ under proposed carbon rule (January 16, 2019)
Past news >>
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:21:20 GMT
Conservatives are snakes. The real reason Perdue is doing this---to remove workers who agree with real science and won't ignore climate change, as shown the 60 Minutes segment on this story. The USDA does much of the government's work around climate research. This unnecessary disruption was strictly a ploy to downsize the number of researchers and scare the remaining ones into submission around Trump's policy of ignoring science and encouraging the ailing fossil fuel industry. And why not kill two birds with ONE stone? :Politics The Trump Administration Broke The Law With Plan To Move Hundreds Of Federal Workers: IGHuffPost Dave Jamieson,HuffPost 3 hours ago www.yahoo.com/news/mick-mulvaney-usda-relocation-161822066.html
The Trump administration failed to follow budget law when it plowed ahead with a plan to uproot hundreds of Washington, D.C.-based Agriculture Department employees and require them to move to the Kansas City area, the agency’s inspector general found.
The relocation spearheaded by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has created turmoil inside two USDA agencies, the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which produce valuable agricultural research that policymakers and the private sector rely on. Many economists and researchers have already chosen to quit rather than start new lives halfway across the country.
Now the inspector general says USDA leadership didn’t follow the letter of the law as it carried out the plan. In a report released Monday, the watchdog said that while the agency has the legal power to move the two offices, it did not obtain budgetary approval from Congress and also failed to meet a reporting deadline.
The inspector general’s findings themselves cannot stop the relocation from moving forward, but they could be used in any congressional or court battles over the USDA’s plan. Workers at the two agencies recently unionized with the American Federation of Government Employees in large part because of the upheaval of the move.
In a statement, the union said the USDA should put its plans on hold until it comes into compliance with the law: “Congress should make it clear going forward that USDA does not have the authority to carry on any similar relocation without Congressional approval, and neither does any other Department or Agency of the federal government.”
The subtext of the whole USDA battle is attrition. The Trump administration made clear from its earliest days that it wanted to shrink the government and get rid of federal employees. The federal unions have been saying that the White House is carrying out that plan by making workers miserable in hopes that they will quit.
Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, went a long way toward confirming that suspicion last week. Speaking to the South Carolina Republican Party at a gala, Mulvaney brought up the USDA move and how many workers decided to resign because of it, calling it “a wonderful way to sort of streamline government.”
Perdue had said publicly that the move from Washington to Kansas City was supposed to be about streamlining the agencies and making them more effective. Mulvaney’s comments suggest that wasn’t the motivation at all.
“Guess what happened?” Mulvaney said. “More than half the people quit. Now, it’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker. I know that because a lot of them work for me, and I’ve tried. You can’t do it. … By simply saying to people, ‘You know what, we’re going to take you outside the bubble, outside the Beltway, outside this liberal haven of Washington, D.C., and move you out to the real part of the country,’ and they quit.”
This spring HuffPost spoke to several USDA researchers who were looking for new jobs because of the impending relocation. They did not express any reluctance to live in a “real part of the country” ― they simply didn’t want to uproot the lives they’d made for themselves and their families in Washington, which is a major hub for the research they do.
Many of them felt the research would deteriorate due to attrition, and that perhaps that was the idea. One worker pointed to a study on food stamps as an example of the sort of work they do that the administration wouldn’t like. The study found that food stamps increased employment in the wake of the recession.
“They know full well you do real damage to an agency when you move it,” the employee said. “The notion that this is about making [the agency] more effective, that’s patent nonsense.”
Related Coverage
USDA Employees Unionize As Buffer Against Trump White House www.huffpost.com/entry/usda-employees-union-trump-white-house_n_5cd45369e4b0796a95d828ad
Trump Administration Backs Off Plan To Close Job Corps Centers After Bipartisan Outcry www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-administration-backs-off-plan-to-close-job-corps-centers-after-bipartisan-outcry_n_5d0b92b0e4b06ad4d25c523e
USDA Scientist Quits, Claims Trump Administration Tried To Bury His Climate Study www.huffpost.com/entry/usda-official-quits-trump_n_5d48728ee4b0ca604e367e50
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:21:50 GMT
U.S. scientist to file whistleblower complaint after agency halts his climate workReuters news.yahoo.com/u-climate-scientist-removed-job-213332806.html By Timothy Gardner,Reuters•August 14, 2019
FILE PHOTO: A general view of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A climate scientist for the Trump administration's health protection agency who was ordered to drop work on climate issues will file a whistleblower complaint this week with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, his lawyers said on Wednesday.
George Luber, who ran the climate and health program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is an expert on the health impacts of climate change including risks to hospitals and public health infrastructure and of diseases borne by mosquitoes and ticks as they increasingly move into northern regions as temperatures rise.
Luber has been a contributor to U.S. government reports including the National Climate Assessment, which last year warned that climate change could cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars.
The administration of President Donald Trump, who rejects mainstream climate science, has a policy of rolling back regulations limiting emissions scientists link to climate change and has ordered cuts to climate science advisory panels.
Luber's office of about 18 people was rolled into a bigger asthma program, which initially was set to include the word climate in its title, but was ultimately named asthma and community health. Ken Archer, a deputy of the climate office, was moved into unrelated work.
The CDC offered Luber the top job at the merged program, but he attracted attention for complaining that the combination of the offices would result in an illegal blending of $10 million the U.S. Congress had set aside specifically for climate work.
The CDC then filed papers charging Luber with misconduct including that he had failed to renew ethics clearance paperwork five years earlier, and that he wrote a book in 2013 without agency authorization, moves his lawyers said were retaliation for complaining.
Although those were the first charges against Luber, who has worked at CDC for 16 years, the agency stripped him of his badge and keys. He now works from home reviewing CDC science papers unrelated to climate, must be accompanied by an armed guard to visit his old office and is prohibited from contacting former colleagues who did climate work, his lawyers said.
"As our climate spins out of control, bureaucrats eager to please the Trump administration have worked feverishly to destroy the reputations of climate scientists who stand in its way," said Kevin Bell, a lawyer for Luber at the watchdog group the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, who is filing the complaint.
The CDC does not comment on personnel matters, a spokeswoman said. She added that the combined office allows climate, asthma and air pollution experts to work on a range of shared health impacts.
Last month Luber was served with CDC papers that propose to suspend him from the agency for 120 days without pay, which renewed an earlier proposal that the agency later retracted after media reports about Luber's situation.
Luber hopes the whistleblower complaint will result in a ruling that will allow him to return to climate work at the CDC, his lawyers said. Bell added that the complaint seeks to restore Luber's reputation as a scientist, which is at risk from the agency's retaliatory actions.
The Office of Special Counsel does not have independent investigatory powers on whistleblower cases but can order agencies to undertake investigations and disclose details of them.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:22:22 GMT
Could there be a growing rift between generations? By the time these JUNIORS are in power it will be too late. Their conservative parents and grandparents will have done their best to destroy the planet to line their pockets and stay in power.Number of young Republicans concerned about environment jumps in last five yearsPublished: Aug 29, 2019 5:18 p.m. ET www.marketwatch.com/story/number-of-young-republicans-concerned-about-human-damage-to-the-environment-jumps-2019-08-29?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
Quinnipiac shows majority considers climate change an emergency, light rail moves along in Phoenix and more from today’s headlines
Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst faced a confrontational crowd when discussing health care and climate change at this 2017 town hall held at Drake University in Des Moines. Author photo by RACHEL KONING BEALS
Evidence of the increasing effects of climate change is building, as are the investing opportunities and changes in consumer habits linked to environmental concerns and resource use. Here are select dispatches about the companies responding to customer demands and climate risk, the ESG investors and their advisers, and the enterprising individuals and scientists preparing for tomorrow.
More young Republicans worried about human damage to planet. A new report by Amsterdam-based Glocalities, which canvassed views worldwide, showed the number of U.S. Republicans who said they “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with the statement “I worry about the damage humans cause the planet” rose by 11 percentage points to 58% between 2014 and 2019.
The number of Republican voters aged 18-34 who are worried about the issue rose by 18 percentage points to 67%, said the poll, which also showed a 10-percentage-point increase among all U.S. Republicans who said they tried “to live eco-consciously.”
Four waves of Glocalities surveys among 189,996 respondents from 20 countries carried out between 2014 and 2019 revealed that a majority of people worldwide is united by a rise of environmental concern. In 2014, 71% of people globally were worried about the damage that humans cause to the planet. This figure has risen steadily to 77% in 2019, the data gathering found.
Read: Regulation rollback expected for climate-changing methane releases from oilfields www.marketwatch.com/story/regulation-rollback-expected-for-climate-changing-methane-releases-from-oilfields-2019-08-29
‘’In recent years, the USA has had its share of environmental disasters, think of the devastating wildfires in California and the flooding due to increasingly heavy rainfall and hurricanes,” said Martijn Lampert, research director Glocalities, which advises on behavioral psychology and marketing research. “By denying climate change so strongly, [President] Trump is generating even more attention and exposure for the topic, while only minorities among his fan base think there is no need to worry about the harm people cause to the planet.’’
“If Donald Trump keeps on denying climate change and refrains from standing up for the environment he won’t be able to grow among the young and be heavily reliant on older generations of republican voters for winning again,” Lampert said.
President Trump in 2017 pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, saying at the time that developing and more recently developed nations, such as economic giant China, didn’t pull their weight when it came to climate policies. Some lawmakers at the time said the cost to the U.S. economy and poorer citizens from reducing fossil fuel use for heat and transportation, at least in the short term, was worrisome.
And: Quinnipiac poll shows majority of voters say climate change is ‘emergency.’ A majority of registered voters nationwide, 56%, say that climate change is an emergency, while 42% do not. Democrats who say that climate change is an emergency registers at 84% to 14%, while independents say 63% to 36%. Republicans say that climate change is not an emergency by 81% to 18%, in this poll. Among 18 to 34 year old voters, who may expect to be the most affected by climate change, 74% say that climate change is an emergency, while 24% do not.
Voters also think that the United States isn’t doing enough to address climate change, with 67% of voters in the poll saying more needs to be done. That’s a new high since the question was first asked by the Quinnipiac University poll in December 2015.
“As fires in the Amazon rainforest serve as just the latest concern about the planet, there is a sense of urgency about climate change among American voters,” said Mary Snow, polling analyst for the Quinnipiac University poll. “More than half call it an emergency.”
Climate fight requires a Net Zero ministry in the U.K.: chief scientist. People must use less transport, eat less red meat, buy fewer clothes and expedite technology to help in the climate-change fight if the U.K. is to come close to halting greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, says its chief environment scientist, Sir Ian Boyd, in an interview with BBC.
He calls for a Net Zero ministry to vet the policies of all government departments in the way the Brexit ministry vets Brexit-related decisions. Boyd warned that persuasive political leadership was needed to carry the public through the challenge. Asked whether Boris Johnson would deliver that leadership, Boyd declined to comment. Johnson has already been accused by environmentalists of talking up electric cars whilst reputedly planning a cut in driving taxes that would increase emissions and undermine the electric car market.
Opinion: Finance is slowly turning green, but fossil fuels still receive too much support www.marketwatch.com/story/finance-is-slowly-turning-green-but-fossil-fuels-still-receive-too-much-support-2019-08-29
Light-rail proposals scrapped in Durham, N.C., and Baltimore, but not Phoenix. The high-population-growth Arizona city, in which car culture has dominated, voted this week to continue financing expansion of the region’s light-rail system. Unofficial election results posted on the city’s website showed that about 62% of voters wanted to continue financing an expanded rail system.
The vote in Phoenix, which has wrestled with poor air quality, intermittent droughts, in addition to traffic congestion, comes after decades of dizzying growth that ranks it as the nation’s fifth-largest city with a population of about 1.6 million. Mayor Kate Gallego, who has supported expanding the 28-mile rail system, described the election results as essential to the city’s future, the New York Times reported.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:22:51 GMT
I suppose common sense based on science and the visuals of coastal cities underwater during daily high tides is not enough to convince these people. Secure the vote making these people moot.Climate Activists Don’t Know How to Talk to ChristiansThe Daily Beast By Jay Michaelson, The Daily Beast•September 15, 2019 www.yahoo.com/news/climate-activists-don-t-know-085617653.html
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photo Getty
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
Religious Christians are the key to America taking action on global warming. And yet, the way climate activists frame the issue often alienates the very people they most need to persuade.
First, the math. Seventy percent of Americans say they want the government to take action to combat global warming. But the Republican Party has, in the last two decades, gone from accommodating a wide range of perspectives on climate change to marching lock-step to the energy industry’s climate denial tune.
Most Republicans, however, don’t work for the energy industry.
Over half of Republican voters identify as conservative Christians—either evangelicals, Catholics, or others. These voters may be right-wing on social issues, right-wing on immigration, and right-wing on ‘big government.’ But they’re not necessarily right-wing on allowing the Earth’s climate to be radically disrupted—and if they move, the Republican Party will have to move too.
But according to two new studies conducted by the Yale Program for Climate Communication and published in the journal Science Communication, most religious Christians understand global warming in very different terms from others.
The first study “found that ‘protect God’s creation’ is one of the most important motivations that Christians report for wanting to mitigate global warming.” Resonant messages included “God made humans responsible for taking care of His creation”; “We can use nature for our benefit, but it is not OK to destroy God’s garden that He entrusted to us”; and the language of “stewardship” over the Earth.
And the second study found that framing the issue of global warming in moral and religious terms was crucial for Christians to care about it, because it suggested that “people like themselves” care about the issue.
“People derive values, a sense of self, and social norms from the groups to which they belong,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program and a co-author of the two studies. “Messages that resonate with group identities may be especially effective in influencing people’s attitudes.”
In other words, we think the way our group thinks.
If we believe that no one in our group cares about a certain issue, we’re less likely to care about it. If we believe that our core values have nothing to do with a certain issue, we’re less likely to care about it.
Unfortunately, when one turns to how the issue is framed in public, these messaging frames are conspicuously absent.
For example, the introduction to next week’s U.N. Climate Action Summit reads, in part:
Global emissions are reaching record levels and show no sign of peaking. The last four years were the four hottest on record, and winter temperatures in the Arctic have risen by 3°C since 1990. Sea levels are rising, coral reefs are dying, and we are starting to see the life-threatening impact of climate change on health, through air pollution, heatwaves and risks to food security.
The impacts of climate change are being felt everywhere and are having very real consequences on people’s lives. Climate change is disrupting national economies, costing us dearly today and even more tomorrow. But there is a growing recognition that affordable, scalable solutions are available now that will enable us all to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies.
If you’re like me—highly educated, privileged, urban-dwelling, and liberal—that language is probably pretty effective.
But according to the new Yale studies, it will probably ring hollow for the constituency that’s most central to changing the United States’ current intransigence on climate science and climate action.
Indeed, the U.N. language doesn’t even include the “most important reason to reduce global warming” chosen by both Christians and non-Christians in the Yale studies, namely: “Provide a better life for our children and grandchildren.”
Instead, it provides a bunch of ecological verbiage about coral reefs and food security.
Nor, of course, is the problem confined to the United Nations.
The Environmental Defense Fund—one of the more centrist and mainstream of American environmental organizations—likewise only mentions the environmental impacts of global warming on its page “why fighting change is so urgent”: “extreme weather events… chunks of ice in the Antarctic have broken apart… wildfire seasons are months longer… coral reefs have been bleached of their colors… mosquitoes are expanding their territory, able to spread disease.”
And yet it doesn’t provide the primary reasons given by people in general (leaving a better world for our children) or Christians in particular (protecting God’s creation).
Of course, these omissions make sense in some ways.
First, obviously, plenty of atheists, Jews, Muslims, and people of other religious backgrounds care about climate change. Especially anyone with kids or grandkids.
But it’s also unlikely that the people writing copy for climate change websites are religious Christians themselves, and are using language that “preaches to the choir,” which in this case means other secular environmentalists.
But if no one speaks in terms that Christians, especially conservative Christians, care about, then climate activists are only going to be talking to themselves.
Which is exactly what’s happened. Levels of understanding and concern about climate change have more or less plateaued in the last few years. On the political level, nothing is happening. Thirty-four percent of Americans still do not “believe” that global warming is being caused by humans, and only 44 percent of Americans say they “worry a great deal” about it. Another recent Yale study found that voters rank it just 17th among issues of concern.
Given the extreme likelihood of an unprecedented refugee crisis brought on by rising seas and changing crop patterns, mass extinctions, and global food shortages, all of those numbers are shocking. According to the World Health Organization, 250,000 people will die each year from 2030-2050 because of increased rates of malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.
Climate denial, meanwhile, is now a billion-dollar industry, with energy-funded think tanks, pseudoscience, lobbying, and media campaigns. The energy industry is using the most persuasive, most effective methods to persuade people about global warming. Why isn’t the environmental movement?
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:23:30 GMT
'Get Your Mops & Buckets Ready!' — Trump's Infuriating Answer To Rising SeasMary Papenfuss HuffPostJanuary 18, 2020, 8:49 PM MST www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mops-and-buckets-trump-climate-change-034911826.html
President Donald Trump offered a definitively low-tech — and maddening — “solution” to rising sea levels amid global warming: “Get your mops and buckets ready!”
He came up with the snide, unhelpful suggestion in a tweet as he criticized ongoing discussions about the possibility of constructing a sea wall to protect New York City, where low-lying areas have already experienced increased flooding from the encroaching ocean. The president called it an “environmentally unfriendly idea” that will “look terrible.”
The proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers for New York would create a six-mile-long barrier of man-made islands with retractable gates. The cost would not be $200 billion, as Trump falsely claimed, but $119 billion, and it would be constructed over 25 years. A finalized proposal isn’t expected to be presented to Congress until at least 2022. Some experts fear the massive proposal is already too little too late.
Critics were absolutely gobsmacked by Trump’s mocking comeback — particularly because the president has his own “environmentally unfriendly” wall that “looks terrible.” The “environmentally unfriendly” president has also won approval to construct two sea walls at his Doonbeg golf resort in Ireland to keep the ocean at bay amid climate change, which Trump has called a “hoax,” but now says is “serious.”
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump · Jan 18, 2020 A massive 200 Billion Dollar Sea Wall, built around New York to protect it from rare storms, is a costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly idea that, when needed, probably won’t work anyway. It will also look terrible. Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!
Angela Belcamino @angelabelcamino Imagine being this proud of being this ignorant.
7,234 4:19 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 805 people are talking about this
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump · Jan 18, 2020 A massive 200 Billion Dollar Sea Wall, built around New York to protect it from rare storms, is a costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly idea that, when needed, probably won’t work anyway. It will also look terrible. Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!
Helen Kennedy ✔ @helenkennedy What if we get Mexico to pay for it?
562 4:29 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 43 people are talking about this
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump · Jan 18, 2020 A massive 200 Billion Dollar Sea Wall, built around New York to protect it from rare storms, is a costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly idea that, when needed, probably won’t work anyway. It will also look terrible. Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!
Chidi®️ @chidinwatu I'll leave this here for no reason.
View image on Twitter 2,199 4:35 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 377 people are talking about this
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump · Jan 18, 2020 A massive 200 Billion Dollar Sea Wall, built around New York to protect it from rare storms, is a costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly idea that, when needed, probably won’t work anyway. It will also look terrible. Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!
Eugene Gu, MD ✔ @eugenegu A massive 200 billion dollar sea wall may not even be enough to protect New York residents from massive storms like Sandy and the tragic reality of climate change and rising sea levels. If Trump thinks a sea wall is environmentally unfriendly, climate change is truly apocalyptic.
6,508 4:25 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 791 people are talking about this
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump · Jan 18, 2020 A massive 200 Billion Dollar Sea Wall, built around New York to protect it from rare storms, is a costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly idea that, when needed, probably won’t work anyway. It will also look terrible. Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!
Brian Tyler Cohen ✔ @briantylercohen Shorter: Trump admits wall won't work.
3,778 4:26 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 339 people are talking about this
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump · Jan 18, 2020 A massive 200 Billion Dollar Sea Wall, built around New York to protect it from rare storms, is a costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly idea that, when needed, probably won’t work anyway. It will also look terrible. Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!
mj caswell @mjcaswell What will mops and buckets do when you are under 10 feet of water? You haven’t thought this through, have you? Glad you will be in Florida, which also is under threat from a rising sea.
34 6:08 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy See mj caswell's other Tweets Also on HuffPost
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:24:06 GMT
Notice how all the responses from the right were talking about getting votes. Not about whether it was right or wrong but just that it wasn't going to get them votes. Seems that is all they care about. They know but still deny Climate change is real and happening; all for Greed and Power!Right-Wing Backlash Greets Modest GOP Foray Into Climate ChangeAri Natter BloombergFebruary 13, 2020, 8:17 AM MST www.yahoo.com/news/modest-gop-foray-climate-triggers-090000229.html
Right-Wing Backlash Greets Modest GOP Foray Into Climate Change
(Bloomberg) -- House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy had barely finished presenting his party’s modest plan to fight climate change when conservatives began piling on in opposition.The free market-group American Energy Alliance dismissed it as a “Republican-led Green New Deal lite” that amounted to a “climate messaging exercise.” The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute called it “bad policy that will not bring any political relief.”
And the Club for Growth vowed to not endorse any candidate who backs what it called the “liberal” Republican climate plan.“Besides hurting our economy, these measures will not make a single environmentalist vote for a Republican and only alienate conservatives across the country,” said Club for Growth President David McIntosh.
The blowback illustrates the challenges facing those trying to shed the Republican party’s climate-denying reputation, which alienates many young voters and polls well for Democrats. The fierce criticism also illustrates the limits of pragmatism for a party long backed by groups that question climate change.
GOP Edges Gingerly Toward Climate Plan After Sowing Doubts
McCarthy unveiled the first of several planned climate initiatives on Wednesday with a package focused on carbon sequestration. It called for the expansion and permanent extension of a tax credit for oil companies and others that capture carbon dioxide and bury it in the ground; money for the development of carbon capture for natural-gas power plants; and support for a plan to plant 1 trillion trees around the world.
“Fighting for a cleaner, safer, and healthier environment” has been well-received during member meetings, including the party’s full-member retreat in 2019 and a policy conference earlier this year, said Matt Sparks, a McCarthy spokesman.
Among the members who participated in the unveiling of the climate plan on Wednesday was Representative David McKinley, a West Virginia Republican steeped in coal-country politics.
“The participation of members across the ideological spectrum and representing every region of the country -- including coal country -- at today’s event represent just how widespread the support is for House Republicans to reclaim the leadership position on the environment,” Sparks said in an email.
Republicans Plot Climate Strategy To Counter Democrats
During Wednesday’s hour-long briefing, McCarthy and other Republican leaders, including Oregon Representative Greg Walden and Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana, made the case that their plan could protect the environment, as well the economy, without mandates embraced by Democrats.
Future components are likely to focus on climate resilience, plastic pollution, and increasing energy from carbon-free sources such as nuclear and hydropower.
“House Republicans stand united against carbon taxes and burdensome regulations,” said Graves, top Republican on a special select committee charged with coming up with solutions to climate change. “America leads the world because of free-market principles, innovation, and our abundant energy resources. We should double down on an America First strategy that enhances our global power and influence.”
While the Republican climate proposals were derided by some environmental organizations, they won praise from at least some right-leaning groups.
“Any debate on climate change must be rooted in political and technical realism, as well as economic competitiveness,” said Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath Action, which promotes energy innovation.
“It’s a good strategy to focus on policies that facilitate breakthroughs relevant for the developing world, instead of divisive policies that would make traditional energy more expensive and only aid deployment of existing technologies,” he said.
(Updates with lawmaker comment in 10th paragraph)
--With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Natter in Washington at anatter5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Ros Krasny
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
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©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 8, 2020 13:24:43 GMT
Coronavirus: How Fox News and other right-wing media endanger our healthnews.yahoo.com/coronavirus-fox-news-other-wing-202100444.html USA TODAY Opinion Nikki McCann Ramírez, Opinion contributor, USA TODAY Opinion•February 27, 2020
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Tuesday that Americans should prepare for a “significant disruption” to everyday life as the spread of COVID-19 (known colloquially as the coronavirus) into the United States becomes “not so much a question of if,” according to one official, “but rather more a question of exactly when.” www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0225-cdc-telebriefing-covid-19.html www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-should-prepare-coronavirus-spread-u-s-cdc-says-n1142556
Despite steady warnings from health organizations worldwide, right-wing media are clogging the airwaves with conspiracy theories and inaccurate reporting. Outlets like Fox News are broadcasting sensationalistic, poorly sourced talking points, obfuscating the realities of the outbreak and the United States' own readiness to deal with it, leaving Americans more vulnerable and less informed.
Virtually from the moment reports of a new virus emerged out of Wuhan, China, far-right extremists began circulating theories about its origin. When experts declared that the coronavirus likely spread from bats, far-right figures began circulating videos showing Asian people consuming exotic animals. Former InfoWars personality Paul Joseph Watson tweeted, “Our media encourages us to eat all kinds of weird stuff because it’s ‘normal’ in other cultures,” but “some cultures are better than others.” www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/2/12/21133560/coronavirus-china-bats-pangolin-zoonotic-disease www.dailydot.com/irl/coronavirus-fruit-bat-soup/ archive.is/uPCag
That evening, Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson also blamed the emergence of the virus on Chinese culture, erroneously claiming it was a result of people consuming animals “alive.”
Fringe conspiracy theories
The moment was emblematic of the cycle that right-wing media has fallen into while covering the coronavirus: Fringe conspiracy theories are making their way to more mainstream outlets and overshadowing accurate, fact-based reporting.
In early February, fringe bloggers claimed that the findings of an unpublished, unreviewed paper that found similarities between the virus and HIV indicated that the virus was man-made. Though it was repeatedly debunked, the claim is now ubiquitous in right-wing media: The Daily Wire, The Federalist, Steve Bannon and Rush Limbaugh have all uncritically pushed the conspiracy theory that the virus may have leaked from a Chinese research lab. www.factcheck.org/2020/02/baseless-conspiracy-theories-claim-new-coronavirus-was-bioengineered/ www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/17/new-coronavirus-what-dont-we-know-dr-anthony-fauci-q-a-opinion/4790996002/ thefederalist.com/2020/02/19/washington-post-uses-chinese-propaganda-in-attempt-to-blast-sen-tom-cotton-over-coronavirus-comments/ www.mediamatters.org/rush-limbaugh/rush-limbaugh-coronavirus-effort-get-trump
On Fox News, Carlson has broadcast the narrative multiple times under the guise that “some say” it might be true. Carlson’s claims are particularly egregious — at one point, he doubled down on the claim minutes after Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stated that “medical professionals suggest that the structure of the virus seems unlikely to have been man-made." www.realclearscience.com/2020/02/21/tucker_carlson_spreads_conspiracy_theories_289562.html
The Daily Caller, a right-wing website founded by Carlson, chose instead to focus on Cuccinelli’s statement that he couldn’t “absolutely” rule it out. dailycaller.com/2020/02/25/cuccinelli-coronavirus-dhs-china/
The “escaped virus” conspiracy theory is no longer contained to right-wing media — it has now spread to at least one prominent lawmaker. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was criticized this week for an appearance on Fox News in which he repeated the debunked theory, and Cotton had made the claim at least two other times on Fox. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/16/tom-cotton-coronavirus-conspiracy/ protect-us.mimecast.com/s/jUPqCADXvPf91Rr0AiGygPx?domain=youtube.com
Despite widespread condemnation by major news organizations for ignoring the best available scientific evidence, right-wing outlets rushed to defend and reframe his remarks. www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/tom-cotton-coronavirus/index.html www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronavirus-tom-cotton-china.html www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/what-about-tom-cottons-coronavirus-theory thefederalist.com/2020/02/19/washington-post-uses-chinese-propaganda-in-attempt-to-blast-sen-tom-cotton-over-coronavirus-comments/ www.dailywire.com/news/media-claims-tom-cotton-coronavirus-claims-debunked-fail-to-debunk-what-he-actually-said
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
The lack of accurate information amid this bioweapon fearmongering is gravely concerning, but possibly more alarming are the emerging right-wing media attempts to frame the spread of coronavirus — and the already visible consequences — as a plot to hurt President Donald Trump.
Limbaugh worked the “lab” conspiracy theory into an unhinged rant, claiming that “the coronavirus is an effort to get Trump” by unknown forces seeking to crash the American economy and help Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders “turn the United States into a mirror image of communist China.” www.mediamatters.org/rush-limbaugh/rush-limbaugh-coronavirus-effort-get-trump
Even though Limbaugh’s story sounds like a cheap spy novel, he’s not alone in pushing this sort of political narrative. Multiple outlets have attempted to blame Sanders for the drop in markets caused by the virus’ affects abroad. www.mediamatters.org/charles-payne/amid-coronavirus-fears-fox-news-blames-bernie-sanders-stock-market-downturn www.dailywire.com/news/absolutely-no-doubt-money-analyst-points-to-bernie-as-stocks-tank
Carlson went so far as to echo Limbaugh’s claim that an economic downturn would ultimately help Sanders defeat Trump.
Coronavirus politics
The politicization of the disease ultimately serves to provide cover for right-wing media to justify bigoted policies and xenophobic rhetoric. Carlson, a man with a well-documented history of expressing white nationalist sentiment, blamed globalization for the outbreak, and declared that “wokeness is a cult” that would “let you die before they admitted that diversity is not our strength." www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlsons-descent-white-supremacy-timeline
Others have adopted right-wing media talking points about the disease to justify Trump’s policies. On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that the coronavirus showed his father had been “proven right again” about “border control, American manufacturing” and being a “China hawk.” Fox News' Melissa Francis argued that the coronavirus outbreak had vindicated Trump’s trade war with China.
www.mediamatters.org/melissa-francis/foxs-melissa-francis-claims-trumps-trade-war-china-will-help-protect-america
It is now practically inevitable that the United States will face an outbreak of the coronavirus, but half-baked information is already appearing in public statements from Trump and other officials. Trump has already made multiple false or misleading claims regarding the virus that contradict experts and his own government organizations. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/chad-wolf-john-kennedy-coronavirus/ www.newsweek.com/homeland-security-deputy-secretary-cuccinelli-criticized-asking-twitter-where-find-coronavirus-1488863 www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus/index.html
No amount of spin can erase the administration’s major cuts to CDC programs over the past two years, which have cast uncertainty on the organization's ability to handle a potential pandemic. www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2
At this moment, every news outlet’s focus should be ensuring that the American public is receiving the best, most accurate information possible regarding the virus. Coronavirus is no less contagious if you watch Fox News rather than CNN or MSNBC. The right-wing media ecosystem’s efforts to muddy the waters ultimately puts their audiences — and the public at large — at greater risk. Right-wing media outlets are failing their audience by turning a global health emergency into a tinfoil hat spectacle.
Nikki McCann Ramírez is a researcher at Media Matters for America. Follow her on Twitter: @nikkimcr
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Conspiracy theories are spreading faster than the coronavirus
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