Map showing the results of the disastrous U.S. presidential election, 7 November 2024. Graphic: Reuters

Desdemona going dark

7 November 2024 (Desdemona Despair) – My work here is done. After more than 13,000 posts warning of the end of the Phanerozoic eon and the imminent extinction of the human species, I’m calling it quits. The first Desdemona blog post was on 14 November 2008 and was titled, Rising CO2 accelerates coral bleaching: study. […]

Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development, appears in a Project 2025 training video denying the seriousness of climate change and saying the movement to combat it is really part of a ploy to “control people.” Kozma says, “If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.” Photo: Heritage Foundation / ProPublica

Inside Project 2025’s secret training videos – “Eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere”

By Andy Kroll, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey 10 August 2024 (ProPublica) – Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced scathing criticism from both Democratic groups and former President Donald Trump. But Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could […]

Trump walks onstage to deliver the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference at the Washington Hilton on 22 June 2024 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Samuel Corum / Getty Images

What Trump allies’ Project 2025 would mean for the fight against climate change – “Trump would frack the National Mall if he thought it would make a couple of bucks for donors and Big Oil”

By Zack Budryk and Rachel Frazin 13 July 2025 (The Hill) – Project 2025, a controversial conservative roadmap that aims to guide the next Republican administration, calls for the elimination of multiple energy- and environment-related offices and rules — moves that would restrict the government’s ability to combat climate change and pollution. Policies promoted under the plan […]

Plaintiffs Mica, 14; Badge 15, Lander 18, and Taleah, 19, listen to arguments during a status hearing on 12 May 2023, in Helena, Montana, for a case that they and other Montana youth filed against the state arguing Montana officials are not meeting their constitutional obligations to protect residents from climate change. The first-of-its-kind trial began Monday, 12 June 2023, before District Court Judge Kathy Seeley in Helena. Photo: Thom Bridge /Independent Record / AP

Montana Republicans appeal to state supreme court to overturn landmark climate ruling – Ruling in Montana case could impact climate change lawsuits across country – “It’s an evasion of your constitutional obligation to protect our rights and our state. Why would you not try?”

By Josh Marcus 11 July 2024 SAN FRANCISCO (The Independent) – Republican officials in Montana urged the state supreme court on Wednesday to overturn a landmark 2023 climate ruling, which sided with a group of young plaintiffs who argued the state was violating their constitutional rights by allowing fossil fuel projects to move forward without […]

James M. Inhofe during a Senate hearing in 2009. The Senate Environment Committee gave him a prominent platform from which to speak out against growing scientific consensus that humans were causing climate change by burning fossil fuels. Photo: Scott J. Ferrell / Congressional Quarterly / Getty Images

James M. Inhofe, Senator who denied climate change, dies at 89

By Robert D. McFadden 9 July 2024 (The New York Times) – James M. Inhofe, a five-term Republican senator from Oklahoma and, until President Donald J. Trump’s arrival in 2017, arguably Washington’s most prominent denier of the established science of human-generated climate change, died on Tuesday. He was 89. His family announced his death in […]

Florida governor Ron DeSantis delivers remarks in Umatilla, Florida,Tuesday, 25 June 2024, during a visit to tout the state’s infrastructure grants program. In May 2024, DeSantis signed a bill that stripped the phrase “climate change” from much of Florida law, reversing 16 years of state policy and, critics said, undermining Florida’s support of renewable and clean energy. Photo: Joe Burbank / Orlando Sentinel

Florida censors references to climate science in textbooks for public schools – “How do you write an environmental science book to appease people who are opposed to climate change?”

By Leslie Postal 5 July 2024 (Orlando Sentinel) – Textbook authors were told last month that some references to “climate change” must be removed from science books before they could be accepted for use in Florida’s public schools, according to two of those authors. A high school biology book also had to add citations to […]

Motorists splash through the water along North Flagler Drive during king tide flooding in West Palm Beach, Florida on 30 September 2023. Photo: Greg Lovett / The Palm Beach Post

Florida, the state of denial, needs to eliminate “heat index” for climate change relief – “Suggestion for DeSantis: ‘Freedom flooding’” 

By Frank Cerabino 21 May 2024 (The Palm Beach Post) – It is time for Florida to ban the words “heat index.” It’s the next logical step to take for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed a new law that removes references to “climate change” in state statutes. Man-made pollution that helps to warm the planet […]

Researchers Peter Hotez (centre) and Tara Kirk Sell (right) at a congressional hearing in 2020. Photo: Sarah Silbiger / Bloomberg / Getty

Harassment of scientists is surging, and institutions aren’t sure how to help – “This is a very powerful adversarial force that is seeking to undermine science, and now it’s not only going after the science. It’s going after the scientists.”

By Bianca Nogrady 21 May 2024 (Nature) – As a vocal advocate of vaccinations for public health, Peter Hotez was no stranger to online harassment and threats. But then the abuse showed up on his doorstep. It was a Sunday during a brutal Texas heatwave in June 2023 when a man turned up at Hotez’s […]

Screenshot of a Twitter (X) post showing a photo of Gov. Ron DeSantis signing legislation that erases the words “climate change” from state statutes on 15 May 2024. Photo: Ron DeSantis / UPI

Gov. Ron DeSantis signs law erasing “climate change” from Florida policy – “This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the governor and the state legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry”

By Sheri Walsh 16 May 2024 (UPI) – With summer’s extreme heat and this year’s hurricane season rolling into Florida next month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Wednesday that will erase climate change from state policy effective 1 July 2024. The new law will erase the words “climate change” from state statutes and make energy […]

In a victory for climate scientists, jurors in Professor Michael E. Mann’s defamation case against Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn awarded Mann $1 million in punitive damages for defamatory comments made in 2012. Prof. Mann’s lawyer called attacks on the scientist “vile”. Photo: Julian Meehan / Flickr

Jury awards climate scientist Michael Mann $1 million in defamation lawsuit – “I hope people think twice before they lie and defame scientists”

By Suman Naishadham 8 February 2024 WASHINGTON (AP) – A jury on Thursday awarded $1 million to climate scientist Michael Mann who sued a pair of conservative writers 12 years ago after they compared his depictions of global warming to a convicted child molester. Mann, a professor of climate science at the University of Pennsylvania, […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial