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Coughs and prayers: Right-wing zealots insist Canadian wildfire smoke is no big deal [1]
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Date: 2023-06-08
You can be forgiven, dear reader, if you find Rep. Marc Molinaro’s call to “depoliticize” another largely preventable rolling disaster a little less than satisfying. On Thursday’s “Fox & Friends,” Steve Doocy—who’s clearly smarter than his cohost Brian Kilmeade but not quite as smart as Kilmeade’s pet intestinal fluke, Gary—interviewed the New York Republican. The congressman got into quite a pique over fellow Empire State Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrageous suggestion that the giant death cloud currently hanging over half of North America was caused by the thing it was caused by. And he’s not the only one insisting there’s nothing to see here.
Listen up, all you mewling, hand-wringing, Chicken Little liberals. This is not the time to talk about the root causes of that poisonous cloud of smoke. The right time is, say, three weeks from now, after the last La Brea tar loogie has been dutifully hocked and all the ExxonMobil-funded think tanks have had a moment to come up with alternate (read: bullshit) explanations.
Just like it’s literally never the right time to talk about the root causes of gun violence, because it’s too crass to “politicize” such things immediately following a gun massacre—and, as we all well know, ain’t nothin’ like a U.S. massacre ‘cause a U.S. massacre don't stop.
RELATED STORY: Smoke from Canadian wildfires blankets the Northeast
Watch:
x Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro on Fox & Friends: It's too soon to politicize the smoke by lecturing about climate change (sound familiar?) pic.twitter.com/2v3TnIXQwC — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 8, 2023
Transcript!
REP. MARC MOLINARO: “AOC can save her lecturing for the floor of the House. Right now there are countless firefighters, there are families being impacted, senior citizens, folks with respiratory issues. There’s little question that Canada needs to obviously focus on forest management, but this isn’t the moment to start lecturing people about the science of climate change. Right now it’s about putting out a fire and keeping people safe.”
For the record, here’s what Molinaro appeared to be responding to. Gird your loins, because this will shock you to your very core:
x Between NYC in wildfire smoke and this in PR, it bears repeating how unprepared we are for the climate crisis.
We must adapt our food systems, energy grids, infrastructure, healthcare, etc ASAP to prepare for what’s to come and catch up to what is already here. #GreenNewDeal 🌱
https://t.co/GT7hY4Ffm3 — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 7, 2023
For the nontweeters, Ocasio-Cortez shared a tweet from meteorologist Jeff Berardelli about a terrifying scorcher in Puerto Rico, with some commentary of her own:
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Between NYC in wildfire smoke and this in [Puerto Rico], it bears repeating how unprepared we are for the climate crisis.We must adapt our food systems, energy grids, infrastructure, healthcare, etc ASAP to prepare for what’s to come and catch up to what is already here. #GreenNewDeal”
JEFF BERARDELLI: Life-threatening heat today in Puerto Rico so hot that some meteorologists are astonished. And more of the same to come this week. Heat index numbers as high as 115-125 today!! So what is going on? There are many factors, so let's dig in...
A quick Google search of “AOC” and “wildfires” currently brings up several articles, almost all of which come from right-wing outlets. One such headline, from The New York Post, reads, “AOC uses NYC wildfire smoke shroud to promote progressives’ Green New Deal.”
Oh, noes! Hie thee to thy fainting couch! What’s this wild-eyed, out-of-control radical doing now? Is she looking for ways to prevent wildfires during a a wildfire outbreak? The temerity! It’s like asking people to wear a mask during a killer pandemic. We can have a reasoned conversation about COVID-19 mitigation efforts after Herman Cain’s body has cooled to 1.2 degrees Kelvin, but he’s still warm, you ghouls! You know, relative to the heat death of the universe.
Of course, conservatives have perfected this sort of response, particularly when it comes to their inaction on gun violence. After mass shootings, Republicans love to tsk-tsk Democrats’ penchant for “politicizing” these incidents. Because God forbid we try to do anything about them. That’s an insult to the current victims. Future victims, of course, can go screw themselves.
If anything, AOC and her fellow progressives aren’t being nearly strident enough in their calls for climate action, because wildfires like the ones now ravaging areas of Canada are likely to only get worse and more frequent as the world warms.
Here’s just one assessment of our current fraught situation from North Carolina State University’s Andrew Moore:
[S]ince 2000, an annual average of 70,072 wildfires have burned an annual average of 7 million acres across the country. That’s more than double the annual average of 3.3 million acres burned in the 1990s, when a greater number of fires occurred annually. Robert Scheller, a professor of forestry and environmental resources at NC State’s College of Natural Resources, said greenhouse gas emissions continue to drive changes in the climate, contributing to warmer-than-average surface temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns — trends that are expected to increase the frequency, intensity and duration of wildfires across the U.S. “Climate change is creating the perfect conditions for larger, more intense wildfires,” said Scheller, who uses geospatial analytics to examine the effects of climate change and human activities on long-term landscape health. “We’re already seeing fires that we didn’t expect to see until 2080.”
But never mind any of that, because the smoke you’re breathing in right now isn’t all that bad, really. Come on, quit whining! Take one for the Chevron Corp. public relations team.
In fact, as professional fossil fuel shill Steve Milloy told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Wednesday, what we’re experiencing may seem awful, but it’s just a typical Thursday in China. Gotta love the chyrons and mask-mocking, too.
x Fox guest: There's just no health risk...We have this kind of air in India and China all the time, no public health emergency... this doesn't kill anybody, this doesn't make anybody cough, this is not a health event... particulate matter is just very fine soot, they're innocuous. pic.twitter.com/DB0hDmqRwC — Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) June 8, 2023
(Partial) transcript!
MILLOY: “Look, the air is ugly, it’s unpleasant to breathe, and for a lot of people they get anxiety over it. But the reality is there’s no health risk. Okay, there’s EPA research, they’ve done lots of clinical research on asthmatics, on elderly asthmatics, on children, on elderly with heart disease—not a cough or a wheeze from any of them. We have this kind of air in India and China all the time. No public health emergency.”
That’s weird, because this Reuters story about the health risks of wildfire smoke from Wednesday says different:
Studies in people have linked wildfire smoke with higher rates of heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac arrests, increases in emergency room visits for respiratory conditions, and weakened immune defenses. Wildfires have also been linked with eye irritation and skin problems. The effects of exposure can persist for years. After Australia's 2014 Hazelwood Coal Mine fire, rates of heart disease remained elevated for two and a half years and respiratory illnesses for five years, researchers reported in April. Wildfire exposure in pregnancy has been associated with pregnancy loss, low birth weight, and preterm delivery. A study from California that has yet to be peer reviewed found a link between wildfire exposure and cellular damage in first- and second-trimester placentas.
But hey, at least our air isn’t as bad as China’s! Don’t you feel better now? By the way, Milloy is a longtime climate change denier, so you may need to take his assurances with a grain of bath salts if you want any hope of understanding them. You can read more about his rascally exploits at Media Matters For America.
[Milloy] has still been a staple of Fox News’ climate denial for over a decade. ... In addition to Fox News, Milloy has a large presence on Twitter, where he often says outlandish things like obsessively referring to climate change believers as “bedwetters” and “climate communists.” He’s called climate activists Nazis and referred to activist Greta Thunberg as “Greta the Climate Puppet.” Since the beginning of 2021, Milloy has begun appearing regularly on far-right outletsOne America News Network and Newsmax to continue his brand of grotesque climate denial.
Speaking of Newsmax:
x Newsmax's Greg Kelly praises the smoke from Canadian wildfires, saying “It's a beautiful, interesting aura” and “it's not an unpleasant odor, to be honest”
https://t.co/G4tYUX9NXx pic.twitter.com/HyQJiHWZra — Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) June 8, 2023
Transcript!
GREG KELLY: ”The orange smog here in New York City, have you heard about it? Many cities, on the east coast, primarily, have this big blanket of orange smog right over the top of it. Our woke friends to the north in Canada, their forest fires got out of hand and well, this is what we’re dealing with. It’s complicating some people’s lives, but it’s manageable. I tell ya, it actually smells like wood smoke. It’s not an unpleasant odor, to be honest. It’s kinda weird when it seeps into the building, but outdoors I can deal with it. Folks with respiratory issues though, that’s a real thing, a real complication. “The White House is trying to exploit this, saying it’s all because of global warming and the normal talking points that go with that. I don’t think that’s the case, I think it’s a forest fire. This actually has happened a couple of times before in history, and for the time being, we can live with it. But it is pretty—it actually is pretty (laughs). It’s a beautiful, interesting aura the city has right now.”
If there’s one thing Republicans are good at, it’s failing to solve the problems they want to pretend don’t exist, or in Greg Kelly’s case, problems they think are “manageable” and “pretty.” Their rather predictable deflections, on the other hand, are getting less and less convincing all the time.
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