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OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2015 Republicans’ climate change denial denial Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service F uture historians — if there are any future historians — will almost surely say that the most important thing happening in the world during December 2015 was the climate talks in Paris. True, nothing agreed to in Paris will be enough, by itself, to solve the HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager problem of global warming. But the talks could mark a turning point, the beginning of the kind of inter- national action needed to avert catastro- phe. Then again, they might not; we may be doomed. And if we are, you resident Obama’s Sunday televised address was what the know who will be responsible: nation needs to hear. The president’s words established the Republican a perspective that is essential for moving forward out of Party. OK, I know strength, not fear. the reaction of Paul It was especially important perversion of Islam” is being many readers: Krugman that Obama reminded the na- carried out by a very small frac- How partisan! How over the tion of all the military action tion of the worldwide popula- top! But what I said is, in fact, the obvi- that is presently underway in tion of Muslims. ous truth. And the inability of our news Syria. And it was essential that It has always been absurd media, our pundits and our political es- in general to face up to that he explained the logic of why it that non-military people could tablishment truth is an important contributing factor would be stupid for America to acquire weapons that are meant to the danger we face. Anyone who follows U.S. political commit ground troops to Syria. for military use — assault weap- We did that in Iraq and we know ons. It is shameful that too many debates on the environment knows that Republican politicians overwhelming- where it leads. Moreover, as in Congress are more in thrall of ly oppose any action to limit emissions the president explained, a large WKH1DWLRQDO5LÀH$VVRFLDWLRQ¶V of greenhouse gases, and that the great continent of American ground mistaken priority than they are PDMRULW\ UHMHFW WKH VFLHQWL¿F FRQVHQVXV troops in Syria is exactly what in keeping Americans safe. The on climate change. Last year PolitiFact FRXOG ¿QG RQO\ HLJKW 5HSXEOLFDQV LQ ISIS wants to see. president asked Congress once Congress, out of 278 in the caucus, who In the days following 9/11, again to move on that front. had made on-the-record comments ac- one of the smartest and best Britain taught us during cepting the reality of man-made global And most of the contenders things that President George World War II that a nation un- warming. for the Republican presidential nomina- W. Bush did was to remind der attack must not give in to tion are solidly in the anti-science camp. What people may not realize, how- Americans that it would be fear. We must emulate that ex- ever, is how extraordinary the GOP’s wrong to persecute or discrimi- ample. wall of denial is, both in the U.S. con- nate against American Muslims The president is right that text and on the global scene. because of the attack on the ISIS is “on the wrong side of I often hear from people claiming World Trade Center. President history.” Moreover, there is no that the American left is just as bad as Obama reasserted that essential- higher message in what they are WKHULJKWRQVFLHQWL¿FLVVXHVFLWLQJVD\ K\VWHULDRYHUJHQHWLFDOO\PRGL¿HGIRRG ly American concept — that we doing. They are, in the presi- or nuclear power. But even if you think are a nation of many religions. dent’s words, “thugs and killers such views are really comparable to cli- mate denial (which they aren’t), they’re And that what he called “the — part of a cult of death.” views held by only some people on the left, not orthodoxies enforced on a whole party by what even my conser- vative colleague David Brooks calls the “thought police.” And climate-denial orthodoxy GRHVQ¶WMXVWVD\WKDWWKHVFLHQWL¿FFRQ- sensus is wrong. Senior Republican members of Congress routinely indulge n the wall of a confer- Italy. At the time, of course, it in wild conspiracy theories, alleging ence room in our building took a great communicator like that all the evidence for climate change is the product of a giant hoax perpetrat- there is a framed front page Roosevelt to buoy his nation’s ed by thousands of scientists around the of this newspaper from Sept. optimism and sell the belief that it world. And they do all they can to ha- DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager P We must not live in fear of ISIS Pearl Harbor Day has meaning in 2015 O 11, 2001. Over a photo of the burning World Trade Center is a headline: “Day of Infamy.” That headline was a direct borrow from this day in history – Dec. 7, 1941 – also known as Pearl Harbor Day. In the draft of President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech to a joint session of Congress, the phrase is “A day that will live in history.” Roosevelt crossed out “history” and inserted “infamy.” If you travel to Pearl Harbor, you will see tangible evidence of that awful moment when waves of Japanese war planes sprayed bullets and dropped bombs on $PHULFD¶V3DFL¿F)OHHW It is easy for us — 74 years later — to see Pearl Harbor in the larger context of American resourcefulness and industri- al might that defeated the Axis powers of Japan, Germany and eventually would triumph. There is a lesson in that for America in 2015. The threat of ter- rorism in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. easily strikes fear in the heart of many Americans. But as FDR reminded the nation on another occasion, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Presidential candidates who are selling fear-based strategies do this nation no good. They also sell America and the courage of Americans short. The urge right now to de- monize all Americans who are Muslims is the worst sort of dem- agoguery. Pandering to fear is not leadership. Basing life on fear is not healthy for a person or for a na- tion. The persistence of courage was the best response to Pearl Harbor. FYI: Exxon gets it; GOP doesn’t Clippings from the press of the 3DFL¿F1RUWKZHVWDQGWKHQDWLRQ N o one would confuse the oil and gas giant with the Sierra Club. But if you visit Exxon’s website , you will ¿QG WKDW WKH FRPSDQ\ EHOLHYHV climate change is real, that governments should take action to combat it and that the most sensible action would be a reve- nue-neutral tax on carbon — in other words, a tax on oil, gas and coal, with the proceeds re- turned to taxpayers for them to spend as they choose. But to today’s Republicans, ExxonMobil’s moderate, self-evident views are akin to heresy. Donald Trump, the lead- ing GOP presidential candidate, says, “I don’t believe in climate change.” Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) says, “Climate change is not sci- ence, it’s religion.” Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) at the moment seems to acknowledge that cli- mate change might be real but opposes any action to deal with it. — Fred Hiatt in The Washington Post Francois Mori/AP Photo Anne Hidalgo , mayor of Paris, center, poses for a group picture with Michael R. Bloomberg U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, with mayors from various cities during a meeting with Mayors at Paris city Hall as part of the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Paris, Friday. rass and intimidate individual scientists. it won’t last, that the party will start In a way, this is part of a long tra- talking sense any day now. (And they dition: Richard Hofstadter’s famous ZLOORIFRXUVH¿QGUHDVRQVWRVXSSRUW essay “The Paranoid Style in American whatever climate-denier the GOP nom- Politics” was published half a century inates for president.) Everything we know about the pro- ago. But having that style completely take over one of our two major parties cess that brought Republicans to this point says that this is pure fantasy. But is something new. It’s also something with no counter- it’s a fantasy that will cloud public per- ception. part abroad. More important, probably, is the de- It’s true that conservative parties across the West tend to be less favor- nial inherent in the conventions of polit- able to climate action than parties to ical journalism, which say that you must their left. But in most countries — ac- always portray the parties as symmetric — that any report on ex- tually, everywhere except treme positions taken by America and Australia How one side must be framed — these parties nonethe- in a way that makes it less support measures to partisan! sound as if both sides do limit emissions. And U.S. Republicans are unique How over it. We saw this on bud- get issues, where some in refusing to accept that the top! self-proclaimed centrist there is even a problem. commentators, while crit- Unfortunately, given the importance of the United States, the ex- icizing Republicans for their absolute tremism of one party in one country has refusal to consider tax hikes, also made a point of criticizing President Barack enormous global implications. By rights, then, the 2016 election Obama for opposing spending cuts that should be seen as a referendum on that he actually supported. My guess is that extremism. But it probably won’t be climate disputes will receive the same reported that way. Which brings me to treatment. But I hope I’m wrong, and I’d urge what you might call the problem of cli- everyone outside the climate-denial mate denial denial. Some of this denial comes from bubble to frankly acknowledge the awe- moderate Republicans, who do still ex- some, terrifying reality. We’re looking at LVW²MXVWQRWLQHOHFWHGRI¿FH7KHVH a party that has turned its back on science moderates may admit that their party at a time when doing so puts the very has gone off the deep end on the cli- future of civilization at risk. That’s the mate issue, but they tend to argue that truth, and it needs to be faced head-on. No, Donald Trump won’t win the race until then they are busy with %XW LQ WKH ¿QDO PRQWK life and work and just glanc- the mentality shifts. The ing at the campaign. If you question is no longer, What shiny object makes me feel little while ago I went rug ask them which candidate good? The question is, Who they support, that question shopping. do I need at this moment to may generate an answer, but )RXUUXJVZHUHODLGRXWRQWKHÀRRU that doesn’t mean they are do the job? Different sorts of and among them was one with a pink actually committed to elect- decision-making styles kick motif that was dazzlingly beautiful. It ing the name they happen to in. For example, there are utter. was complex and sophisticated. two contrasting types of de- Over at the FiveThirtyE- David If you had asked me at that moment ight blog, Nate Silver looked cision-making mentalities, Brooks which rug I wanted, I would have said at campaign-related Google PD[LPL]LQJDQGVDWLV¿FLQJ the pink one. searches in past years in the weeks be- If you’re choosing a marriage partner, 7KLV FRQYLFWLRQ ODVWHG DERXW ¿YH fore the Iowa caucuses. Until a week or you probably want to maximize. You PLQXWHV%XWWKHQP\PHQWDOLW\ÀLSSHG two before the caucuses very few peo- ZDQWWR¿QGWKHYHU\EHVWSHUVRQ\RX and I started asking some questions. ple are doing any serious investigations are totally in love with. You’ll need Would the furniture go with this rug? of the candidates. Then just before and that passion to fuse you two together Would this rug clash with the wall after the caucuses voters get engaged so you can survive the tough times. You want somebody who can inspire hangings? Would I get tired of its elec- and Google searches surge. tric vibrancy? Silver produced a chart showing and be a messenger to your best future. But politics is not like that. Politics Suddenly a subtler and more prosaic what this year’s polling would look like blue rug grabbed center stage. The rugs if we actually took the current levels of is a prosaic activity most of the time. had not changed, but suddenly I wanted casual attention and uncertainty seri- <RXSUREDEO\ZDQWWRVDWLV¿FHSLFNWKH the blue rug. The pink rug had done an ously. In that chart “Undecided” had 80 person who’s good enough, who seems excellent job of being eye-popping on percent support. Trump had 5 percent reasonably responsible. :KHQ FDPSDLJQV HQWHU WKDW ¿QDO its own. The blue rug was doing an ex- support; Carson, 4; Cruz, 3; and Rubio, month, voters tend to gravitate toward cellent job of being a rug I could enjoy 2. living with. That’s about the best description the person who seems most orderly. As For many Republi- of where the Republican the primary season advances, voters’ tolerance for risk declines. They focus cans, Donald Trump is race is right now. All the their pink rug. He does the Just because voters on the potential downsides of each con- job that they want done at DUHQ¶W PDNLQJ ¿QDO GHFL- tender and wonder, Could this person WKLV PRPHQW +H UHÀHFWV traits that sions doesn’t mean they make things even worse? When this mental shift happens, I their disgust with the po- are passive. They’re in the seem litical establishment. He dressing room. They’re suspect, Trump will slide. All the traits gives them the pleasur- charming WU\LQJRQGLIIHUHQWRXW¿WV that seem charming will suddenly seem able sensation that some- 0RVWRIWKHPDUH¿QGLQJ risky. The voters’ hopes for transforma- will body can come to Wash- they like a lot of different tion will give way to a fear of chaos. When the polls shift from registered ington, kick some tail and suddenly FRQÀLFWLQJFKRLFHV shake things up. Human beings have voters to likely voters, cautious party But decision-making multiple selves. The mind loyalists will make up a greater share of seem is a journey, not an early dances from this module those counted. The voting booth focuses the mind. December snapshot. It to that module. When risky. goes in stages. Montaigne tried to de- The experience is no longer about The campaign may scribe his mind, he wrote, self-expression and feeling good in the seem old, but we are still in the casual “I cannot keep my subject still. It goes PRPHQW ,W¶V DERXW WKH ¿QJHU RQ WKH attention stage. Every four years poll- along befuddled and staggering, with nuclear trigger for the next four years. sters ask Iowa and New Hampshire a natural drunkenness.” In one mood In an era of high anxiety, I doubt Re- voters when they made up their minds. Trump seems pretty attractive to some SXEOLFDQYRWHUVZLOOWDNHDÀLHURQWKHLU Roughly 70 or 80 percent make up their people. In another it’s Carson, or Cruz party’s future — or their country’s fu- ture. PLQGVLQWKH¿QDOPRQWKRIWKHUDFH8S or Rubio. By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service A