That was Toles’ sketchpad “outtake” cartoon that didn’t make it into the paper. And here is his self-proclaimed final rant on climate:
This will be my last rant about the climate. Cartoonists sometimes look just like the archetypical cartoon character crawling across the desert. Gary Larson did a cartoon about two guys crawling across a desert, dying of thirst. They have come upon a drinking fountain. One is letting it run without drinking and saying he’s going to let it run until it gets cold. That’s about as sensible as the debate on climate change.
We are apparently going to let the debate on the science run until hell freezes over. If you can’t accept the conclusions of 98 percent of the scientists whose FIELD IT IS, then why even bother with science? If that high a percentage of field of study is to be discounted ENTIRELY, then we are in deep trouble, which, of course, we are. It would be so simple if it were just a matter of ignoring the yelping commenters hereabouts: “Move on, Mr. Cartoonist! Chill out Tommy! There are more important things to worry about!”
Really? Which would those things be? This may be the only political issue whose results could be catastrophic PERMANENTLY. But the deliberate dust storm thrown up by fossil-fuel-centric interests has succeeded in contaminating and paralyzing the American response. Quite a victory for the deniers! It looks like mass-suicide to me. And so, my final rant on climate. Except not really. There has to be a drinking fountain out there somewhere. –Tom Toles
Tom Tomorrow’s terrific cartoon in Salon is titled “Reality: Who needs it! Now that it’s been denied, distorted and rewritten, maybe it’s time to jettison the whole concept.”
Plus a bonus Toles titled “Election digest“:
Related Post:
- Best Toles cartoon ever
- Toles on record heat, extreme weather, climate bill and how “Everyone feels entitled to their own science now.”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Tom should read Clive Hamilton’s “Requiem for a Species” where he says: “Despair, Accept, Act.”
Funny posts- the cartoon at the top seems like the same old worn out records the far right has been using for decades- but frankly, in my opinion Global Climate change will break the far right- and take the GOP down the tubes with it real soon.
The ‘bad stuff’ as was predicted dating back 2 decades and perfected today now is starting to pile up worldwide-The ‘paid off’ media is starting to come out of their ‘cower’ positions.
the Deniers and their sponsors-most of the GOP and a handful of Democrats will be disgraced in short time.
Here’s Toles’s cartoon that did make it into the paper, two days ago:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/08/crime_and_punishment_i_rub.html
“First climate change came for Russia, but I didn’t care because I wasn’t Russian…”
OT I know, but I just read that Clive Crook has changed his comments on Michael Mann and apologized! Good Job Joe!!
[JR: Where? Don't see it.]
@#2
frankly, in my opinion Global Climate change will break the far right- and take the GOP down the tubes with it real soon.
Dream on. The great depression should have broken the far right – permanently. As long as you have enough money, all you need to do is pay people to rewrite history.
Tim #
Climate Change, and the Depression and other events of the 20th century
will look easy compared to what we are facing in this century.
The current Republican party will have to assume a different mantra- as they did after the depression; ‘Modern Republicanism’ like Eisenhower.
However after their ‘kind’ has literally destroyed the planet- it will take a long time for them to rebuild trust in a ‘democracy’ if we have one left- so your ‘As long as you have enough money, all you need to do is pay people to rewrite history ‘is certainly possible- if there is total anarchy and ‘social anomie’ caused by global climate change.
On my last post- I meant to say the events of the 20th century will look like a picnic in the park compared to what climate change could do in this century. The Chaos it may cause may make any political party irrelevant nationally.
The US as it stands now is a fractured nation on social and cultural issues- can it stand up to the social chaos of climate change?
What we could see is a deterioration in the fabric of American society. A nation ‘split up’ into different Geographic regions-
The cooler states will leave the USA – the upper Midwest- the region from the central California coast to the Canadian border- the upper Midwest- The highland rockies and the upper Northeast. The other Geographic regions are likely to be ravaged by climate change.
Fascinating scenarios, politically and socially- it all depends of course if we are able to reduce drastically our CO2 emissions.
The challenges of the 21st century look fascinating- but deadly for us as a species.
America has always had fringe political elements that harbor wacky ideas that at times make it into the broader public debate. After all in 1938 Henry Ford was deeply honored to receive, from Adolph Hitler, the highest honor that the Nazis could bestow on a foreign civilian. Ford, along with Charles Lindbergh, were among the “head-in-the-sand” crowd with regard to the coming war with Germany and Japan. They did not perceive any threat to the US. They thought the US could just ignore the rest of the world and carry on with business as usual at home. After Pearl Harbor, Ford did not want to convert to war production and he thought the government was conspiring to take over his company. This is just one example of the rich American history of wacky ideas.
For fun you might want to look up John Birch to see how his name became attached to a fringe right-wing political group. John had no idea that he would be remembered in such a fashion. Just examining the rich political history of Richard Nixon is enough to convince anyone of the great swings that American political thought can run through over the course of 20 years.
#4, Joe, last paragraph. He claims he has updated the article and taken your comments into account. Then he apologises (sarcastically), for getting it wrong.
I’m 120% with the comment in the post. If you can’t trust 98% of the people who work in the field, then just get on with it and don’t complain when people start to die.
“You Were Warned” Won’t go down very well but at least it will give some comfort to those who have to watch the idioits destroy our biosphere.
In some ways Steven Hawking is right. We need to get off this rock before it kills us for our own stupidity. What he does not say in force is that we have to leave the stupid idiots behind!
@#2. Peter Mizla:
. . . frankly, in my opinion Global Climate change will break the far right- and take the GOP down the tubes with it real soon.
*********************************
Unfortunately not. I’d hate to ruin someone’s hope for the future but it’s not going to happen this way. Oh yes, a temporary crises will manifest itself politically. By no means, however, can we afford to take a passive stand on this issue in view of one of the most common practices of liars. They change their lies.
NEVER, EVER, underestimate the Oil Companies and their desire to perpetuate the status quo! They, like the Deniers they puppeteer, will simply change their propaganda.
What will soon happen is that the Official Lie will be changed to “Natural Global Warming”* and the Official Solution will be Geo-engineering. WHATEVER IT TAKES to take responsibility away from Mankind (Read Oil & Coal Companies) and perpetuate their profits by deflecting any issue of reducing emissions with pseudo solutions like Geo-engineering.
It’s obvious what the Corporate motives are and there’s no further need to dwell on them. We need, however, to constantly remind ourselves of the psychology of the INDIVIDUAL Denier.
I’ve seen very little spoken off about the deep psychology of the Conservative Personality, Republican or Democrat, as it relates to the issue of Man Made Global Warming. Just as important, at least in the USA, is the particular RELIGIOUS MENTALITY that influences a very large minority of the American Population. I’m referring to Fundamentalist Christianity (Pre-Millenial).
From what I’ve heard about psychological tests of Conservatives they are egocentric and family centered with hardly any concern about the external world-Social or Natural. People, outside their pseudo tribes, are either to be ignored or conquered. The Natural World, much the same.
It is not surprising then that they have no sense of responsibility of how their actions affect the outside world. It is this psychological predisposition (Probably genetic) and NOT, as most believe, a mere coincidence of having been taught such and such that drives them to formulate their opinions. Thus, we cannot fool ourselves into believing that we can solve anything by either attempting to re-educate them or having Nature teach them in that language that admits to no rebuttal.
When the moment comes for them to recreate their Mythopoetic Narrative because their previous fairy tales are crumbling, rest assured, their basic egos won’t change. Therefore, “NATURAL GLOBAL WARMING AND GEO-ENGINEERING”.
Then we have the “Born Again” who will not give a damn. Jesus is coming, pronto, and will catapult his faithful up to the skies where he can snatch them and live happily ever after. After a few years of woe on us evil, Nature worshiping heathen, we’ll get slaughtered and the literal Earth itself will be molten and recreated.
With this mentality, why bother about ANYTHING OF FUTURE IMPORTANCE? Worrying about Global Warming to them is like you or I worrying about painting our house a month before it is demolished. In fact, they will simply adopt Global Warming as one of the Apocalyptic signs of the end. How dare they try to solve Wars, Famines, Pestilence and Cosmic Pyrotechnics when it is their God who is providing these abominations to convince people to worship Him?
Thus, we have a double whammy of Conservatism (religious or not) reinforced by Fundamentalist Religion. There may be a way out of this predicament but it’s not going to be pretty.
So my apologies for this pessimism but, for now at least, we’re f***ed.
********************************
*Yes, I know that Natural Global Warming is a most common Denier belief but when GW becomes too obvious for the “Global Cooling” clowns then, IMO, NGW will become standardized propaganda.
@#9. NeilT says:
In some ways Steven Hawking is right. We need to get off this rock before it kills us for our own stupidity. What he does not say in force is that we have to leave the stupid idiots behind!
********************
There is the moral perspective, however, to the idea of escaping the RESULTS of our follies. We do not escape the CAUSES of our follies.
QUESTION: What will Humanity do when it gets out into the Cosmos?
ANSWER: What it did on Earth.
Why should we inflict that on other life forms, some of whom may be Sentient and more worthy than us?
NeilT: Regarding escape to space:
You are not considering the gravity of the situation. Besides, existence in space is a death defying illusion. Tend the garden, even as disaster looms. The sun still rises (and perhaps a global revolution is afoot).