Because church doctrine held that Earth was the center of the universe, the Inquisition compelled the astronomer Galileo to recant his belief that our planet orbits the sun.
Only his own life was in peril in that infamous early instance of science denial. Now, everyone is endangered by some current manifestations.
Four centuries after Galileo, the United States has become an epicenter of unreality. Political ambition and corporate greed, not religious dogma, are responsible this time.
A president-elect with an Ivy League degree who denies that fossil fuels cause catastrophic climate change is poised to pull the plug again on the Paris Accord, humankind’s best but fading hope for preserving a livable planet.
Donald Trump also means to put all U.S. health policies under the thumb of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is hostile to life-saving vaccinations and teeth-preserving fluoridation.
Making America Florida
A Florida governor with two Ivy League degrees made a vaccine denier his chief health officer. And Ron DeSantis banned climate change from the public school curriculum, much like the Vatican censored astronomy.
DeSantis talks as if hurricanes have become more intense only because Florida’s geography is so exposed.
“You are always going to have tropical weather,” he said after Helene and Milton caused tremendous damage. “These are natural occurrences. We will deal with tropical weather for as long as we’re Floridians.”
That half-truth avoids the fact that warmer oceans generate stronger storms with heavier downfalls.
There are always variable weather factors such as El Niño to consider, but long-term climate change surely contributed to the “biblical” rainfalls that caused 102 deaths from Helene in North Carolina and 214, with many more still missing, in Spain.
“They say there is no climate change. Then what is this atrocity?” a 64-year-old woman in Valencia told the New York Times.
Helene was still short of a Florida landfall when climate scientists took alarm that it had grown from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane within 24 hours. It was “some of the most explosive intensification this forecaster has ever witnessed,” a National Weather Service meteorologist posted on social media.
A governor’s lack of vision
DeSantis hasn’t ignored the rising seas that overflow South Florida shorelines even on sunny days. His strategy, though, is limited to resiliency. His 2021 legislation concentrated on flood control and on protecting waterways, coastlines and shores “which serve as invaluable natural defenses against sea level rise,” according to the Department of Environmental Protection.
But that addresses only one consequence of climate change and does not acknowledge the unfeasibility of walling off entire island nations, states or cities in the manner that dikes have protected the Netherlands.
Venice, which is sinking, spent some $6.5 billion to build tidal floodgates. For one city.
The other lethal potentials of climate change have become apparent in prolonged heat waves that in some places, such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, the Middle East and even Europe have killed thousands and pushed the limits of human survival.
Climate change has led to droughts as well as deluges. It is implicated in more frequent, larger and deadlier wildfires, which threaten new plagues and endanger sustainable farming throughout the world.
‘Sirens are blaring’
The World Meteorological Association says 2023 was the hottest year on record. A UN report warns that the world is close to if not already across the warming point where the damage will be irreversible.
“Sirens are blaring across all major indicators,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres.
Although the United States was once the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases, the basic cause of climate change, China leads now.
It will obviously require a far more concerted international effort to protect the earth’s living things, but the U.S. ought to lead the effort rather than retreat from it.
President Biden tried. Perhaps Elon Musk can talk sense to Trump before he wears out his welcome.
It’s remarkable that so many people ignore the obvious.
Entrenched influences
The political motives are obvious too. Oil, gas and coal have constituencies among their employees as well as among the super-wealthy proprietors who support Republican candidates with their money.
Environmentalists are minuscule contributors by comparison.
As for health policy, both Trump and DeSantis have exploited voters who don’t care to be told to take the jab or wear masks, whether for their own sake or to protect others.
The irony is that the swift development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines was the greatest accomplishment of Trump’s first term in the White House.
That saved millions of lives, but how many will now be sacrificed to reward RFK Jr.?
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. To contact us, email at [email protected].
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