Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable suffering for billions.

We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.

That’s the pithiest expression I’ve seen on the subject of adaptation, via John Holdren, now science advisor.  Sometimes he uses “misery,” rather than “suffering.”

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The Koch Industries scions, the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, have not only polluted American politics with global warming denial, but also barraged their employees with right-wing, anti-science propaganda for years. Koch Industries is one of the largest private companies in the world, with about $100 billion in annual revenues and 80,000 employees. The Koch brothers are virulently right-wing ideologues who have spent decades attempting to prevent regulation of their toxic pollution — including oil refining, formaldehyde, and industrial agriculture — through a network of hard-right think tanks and astroturf groups.

Exploring the Wichita-based Koch Industries in-house newsletter, “Discovery,” the Wonk Room has found that Koch Industries propagandizes its own employees — from the Flint Hills Resources refining group to the Georgia Pacific paper consumer products giant — with global warming denialism. Koch’s corporate climate denial cites the very front groups that it funds, such as the American Council on Capital Formation, Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and the Institute for Energy Research.

In addition to climate denial, the Koch Industries newsletter — managed by Koch’s top propagandist Rich Fink — repeatedly asserts that any rule or regulation to limit pollution will destroy the economy and American freedom. Employees concerned about this assault on prosperity are encouraged to turn to Americans for Prosperity, Koch’s Astroturf organization that works to elect hard-right Republicans and dismantle progressive policies.

Ironically, the quarterly Koch newsletter also reports on the terrible damage caused by climate disasters to the Koch community from Kansas to Texas. In 2007, tornadoes flattened Greensburg, KS. In 2008, Hurricane Ike washed away the homes of 80 Koch employees and affected 1400 others.

Below is a review of the last few years of Koch Industries “Discovery” newsletters and their dark world of climate denial: Read more

Our favorite climate de-crocker, Peter Sinclair has a new video that is particularly terrifying:
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Last week I reported on the New Yorker’s expos© on the Koch brothers, including their greenwashing and whitewashing Smithsonian exhibit.  Now meet the terrific CAP researcher behind the story:

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Russia counts the cost of drought and wildfires

The extreme heatwave, which caused a severe drought and wildfires in Russia, might be over, but both officials and consumers are now busy calculating its cost and trying to work out its consequences.

Russian deputy economy minister, Andrei Klepach, said earlier this week that the drought would take up to 0.8% off this year’s economic growth, “or maybe even more than that”.

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Podesta, Caldwell: “Lasting gains in agricultural productivity will require … action to confront climate change.”

Prices of basic foodstuffs like buckwheat and flour have soared in Russia over the past month as the effects of its worst ever drought hit supplies, statistics showed Wednesday….

Most alarmingly, the price of Russian staple buckwheat — enjoyed by generations for breakfast or as an accompaniment to meat — rose a very sharp 8.6 percent in the space of the week.

So Seed Daily reported Wednesday.  Last year, Lester Brown and Scientific American asked “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?”

CAP’s John D. Podesta and Jake Caldwell have a new piece in Foreign Policy,”The Coming Food Crisis,” which I excerpt below:

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