Margaret Wente's Climate Conversion: From Denial to Despair

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Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente, who was still contesting the science of climate change as recently as last December, has become a convert.

In her column today (we regret that the Globe finds her prose too precious to share online) she begins by saying:

โ€œLast week a clear-headed woman (Frances Cairncross, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science) got up and said in public what no politician, not even Stephen Harper, is brave enough toย say.

Her message: We should stop pretending that we can prevent climate change. No matter what we do, global warming is inevitable. Slowing the process is important – but we should also start figuring out how we’re going to adapt.โ€

Unfortunately, this revelation has not moved Wente to actually want to take action. In fact, she seems to dismiss her own injunctive that โ€œslowing the process is important,โ€ย saying:

โ€œThe notion that we can meaningfully alter the course of climate change anytime soon is a piece of stupifyingย hubris.โ€

Certainly the DeSmogBlog would never challenge Wente’s expertise when it comes to stupifying hubris. Still, it seems disingenuous for her to go from a position of saying, climate change is too complicated, so we should ignore it, to saying, climate change is too far gone, so, well, we should ignoreย it.

Actually, Wente does make tiny inroads on the question of adaptation, but you have to wonder what relevance โ€œtougher rules about building on flood plainsโ€ is going to have for 60 millionย Bangladeshis.

Wente concludes today’s lesson withย this:

โ€œCaircross has one other case to make. She argues that we desperately need to improve scientific literacy among the public, so that citizens will have a better understanding of environmental issues. I’ll second that. Maybe we can include the politicians,ย too.โ€

Would it be too obvious to add newspaper columnists to that list?

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