How about making scientifically challenged politicians
accountable for their inaction on climate change?
Environmental groups
tend to be a bit grim-faced. That’s understandable since they’re constantly
confronting industrial uglies that range somewhere between awful and
apocalyptic.
So it’s a treat when
one of them turns impishly playful, as a group of climate change activists
called 350 Action recently did.
In an act of “serious
fun,” this bunch has launched an online petition calling on the World
Meteorology Organization to change the way it names hurricanes.
Instead of dubbing them with generic labels like “Bob” or “Juanita,” 350 Action wants the more-numerous and more-powerful storms we’re getting more frequently to be named after head-in-the-sand politicos who — in mindless defiance of science — are climate change deniers.
Instead of dubbing them with generic labels like “Bob” or “Juanita,” 350 Action wants the more-numerous and more-powerful storms we’re getting more frequently to be named after head-in-the-sand politicos who — in mindless defiance of science — are climate change deniers.
Thus, we’d have
Hurricane John Boehner, in honor of the House Speaker who goes to extremes to
derail regulations that would stop profiteering polluters from wreaking havoc
on the globe’s climate. In standing against needed policy changes, Boehner has
been like a rock — only dumber. So he deserves to have a particularly
destructive hurricane branded with his name.
Also, since the
Weather Channel now attaches monikers to other big weather events,
opportunities abound for tagging scientifically challenged politicians with
public accountability for their irresponsibility.
It would be a useful learning experience, for example, for people to see the damage done by Tornado Rick “Oops” Perry, or to witness the unusually severe flooding caused by the Michele Bachmann Unstable Air Mass over Minnesota.
And Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who constantly huffs that climate change is a “hoax,” should be credited with the Jim Inhofe Drought of Biblical Proportions presently parching the Southwest and Great Plains.
It would be a useful learning experience, for example, for people to see the damage done by Tornado Rick “Oops” Perry, or to witness the unusually severe flooding caused by the Michele Bachmann Unstable Air Mass over Minnesota.
And Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who constantly huffs that climate change is a “hoax,” should be credited with the Jim Inhofe Drought of Biblical Proportions presently parching the Southwest and Great Plains.
For more on the
Climate Name Change campaign, go to ClimateNameChange.org and watch its
hilarious video.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is
a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the
populist newsletter, The Hightower
Lowdown. OtherWords.org