Putting the Existential Threat of Climate Change Front and Center

Putting the Existential Threat of Climate Change Front and Center

Putting the Existential Threat of Climate Change Front and Center

Until recently, the US mainstream media featured more climate silence than climate science.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

When President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden meet on the debate stage next week, many West Coast wildfires will almost certainly still be raging. Moderator Chris Wallace should ask the candidates about climate change, an issue on which they are starkly divided.

Biden believes that climate change is an “existential threat” that demands immediate, far-reaching action—what scientists the world over have been saying for decades. Given Trump’s recent remarks to California officials, we shouldn’t expect much science from his administration—more of Trump’s Earth-is-flat promises that temperatures will magically “start getting cooler, you just watch.”

In good news, the eerie orange sky over San Francisco is returning to blue, and firefighters are making progress against several of the most significant wildfires. But, critically, that doesn’t mean the larger issue is going away.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

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Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more. 

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