PLEA Network

2 September 2015, The Guardian, The easiest way to respond to a natural disaster? Blame God or global warming. For politicians, it’s convenient to have an incorporeal bogey man for a scapegoat. And the bonus is that global warming doesn’t vote. Katrina was the big bad storm for which we were totally unprepared. It’s like adulthood. You know it’s coming. You think you’re ready but you’re not. You’ve completely underestimated its force and power. Of course we can blame our buddy Brownie and company for how the emergency response was mishandled, but what actually caused the storm, again? It’s uber fashionable to blame global warming in some circles and god in another – but what do scientists have to say? Savvy politicians blame natural disasters like Katrina on global warming, but then deny global warming exists when it becomes too expensive to do anything about it or when they need campaign donations. It’s convenient to have an incorporeal bogey man to blame. And bonus: global warming doesn’t vote. When pressed by concerned constituents to say what they’re actually doing about this growing environmental menace to society, politicians spring into action by assembling task forces (because people work so well in groups). At the speed of evolution, politicians will superficially review the task force’s findings, dispute the findings, shelve the findings and start the process again – but only if pressed. This data dance might take about 10 years to do, which is just in time for the next natural disaster. Read More here