Atsui!

I've been reading Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine," her landmark (for the Left) book about "disaster capitalism" (review imminent). Her basic thesis, applied to the Bush administration, is that the the attacks of 9/11 and the War on Terror were subterfuges to shock and awe the American public so that they could not resist the sinister spread of the corporate state represented by Halliburton and Bechtel. Well, at least with 9/11 there really was something to be scared of; lower Manhattan really was attacked and thousands were killed. 

Sophisticated progressives, on the other hand, are panicked and stampeded into acceding to the hamstringing of our economy to prevent "climate change."State forecast to face less water, more heat

Californians probably will have to cope with less water and more frequent and intense wildfires, heat waves and bad-air days throughout this century, according to studies released Wednesday by state climate experts.

In its response, the state is restoring wetlands to accommodate rising tides, planning to protect water supplies and highways, preparing firefighters and medical workers for wildfires and heat waves, opening corridors for wildlife migrations and regulating greenhouse gases that drive global warming.

Please return to your homes! Trained professionals are on the scene! 

None of this stuff has happened. There is no guarantee that it WILL happen. Not only that, since when is climate change bad? It's going to "change" no matter what happens! 

Here are more glimpses of the horrors that await: 

Conifer forests have crept up warming mountain slopes in the past 60 years. In Yosemite National Park, small mammals are now found at higher elevations, and butterflies in the Central Valley have been arriving earlier in the spring over the past four decades.

San Francisco Bay waters have risen 8 inches in the past century - and will continue to rise, researchers said. Peak levels are likely to rise 1 to 1 1/2 feet by 2050 and as much as 4 1/2 feet higher by 2100

Conifer forests? Small mammals?! Butterflies??!! 

Al Gore was right! We should have listened to him instead of making him a multi-millionaire author, movie producer, and Grammy winning "narrator!"

The linked article, I should add, was on the front page of the SF Chronicle, which presented the above uncritically, and without dissent. Even at the height of the "drumbeat to war"  in Iraq, President Bush's arguments were always accompanied by his critics. But, if the story is climate change, there is one story, and it's always the same. 

I used to think books like "Manufacturing Consent" were little more than the left-wing version of Cold War paranoia. Now, I have to wonder.