covid-19

Peter Dykstra: Stop, you’re killing me

Denial is taking a toll.

Tens of millions of my fellow Americans are trying to make me sick, in more ways than one.


The often-ludicrous reasons for today's vaccine avoidance have their ancestors in other health, science, and climate crises.

Deepwater denial 

The late Rush Limbaugh was such a reliable gusher of whoppers, quarter-truths, and loopy conspiracy theories that it shouldn't be this easy to pick any single one out, but here's mine: A week after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, Limbaugh told his radio audience that "environmentalist wackos" had doomed the rig and killed 13 of its crew. Never mind that rig operator BP admitted blame two days earlier.

Non-peer-reviewed literature

Former 11-term Illinois Congressman John Shimkus has quoted the book of Genesis and the Gospel according to Matthew as guarantees that overrule the prevailing science, and that climate change will "not destroy this Earth."

God's word, the Congressman says, is "infallible, unchanging, perfect."

Shaving the truth

Paul LePage was an obscure small-town Maine mayor who became governor in 2010 on an anti-regulatory platform. But he wasn't your run-of-the-mill science hater. Even a decade ago, when warming coastal waters posed a threat for Maine's lobster industry, LePage embraced the science.

But as the Maine Legislature considered a measure to restrict endocrine-disrupting bisphenol-A (BPA) in 2011, LePage said he'd reviewed the science on BPA, and offered this (it's at 1:30 of this video.)

"If you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. And so the worst case is some women might have little beards."

Ummm .. come again, Paul?

"Where you now have cows, you will have fish"

In 1990, The Washington Post reported that J.R. Spradley, a U.S. delegate at an international climate change conference, told the Bangladeshi delegation that their nation getting swamped by sea level rise won't be such a bad thing. "

The situation is not a disaster; it is merely a change. The area won't have disappeared; it will just be underwater. Where you now have cows, you will have fish."

"Think of the clearcut as a temporary meadow"

Fifty years ago, Patrick Moore was an eager graduate student who crewed on the first Greenpeace voyages to oppose nuclear weapons tests. Over the next decade, he became a leader in the growing group's triumph and turmoil. He quit in 1986, showing up a few years later as a paid spokesman for Greenpeace foes –vinyl makers, logging multinationals, a nuke plant trade group, and more. Here's a wet kiss to the timber industry:

"Taken in the right light, clearcuts can actually look quite pretty. Think, for just a moment, of the clearcut as a temporary meadow."

Some climate yucks from Fox News

As I cited a few weeks ago, Fox's in-house comic, Greg Gutfeld, gifted us with 10 minutes of climate mirth earlier this month.

It turns out that since a recent study cited more global deaths from excessive cold than from excessive heat, that a little global warming is a great thing.

So ... don't we all feel a little better?

Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.

His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate, or publisher, Environmental Health Sciences.

Banner photo credit: christopher catbagan/Unsplash

Climate change and an aging population

New book explores how climate change impacts the elderly in unique ways — and how we can preserve their well-being and include them in solutions.

Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.

Environmental, immigrant groups say state needs to prepare for likely climate migration

In Maine, as in other places, the impacts of climate change are already being felt, with ocean temperatures warming quickly and the state experiencing higher than average levels of precipitation.

airborne power generator
European Space Agency/FlickrCredits: Ampyx Power

Navy lab funds Durham firm's airborne power generator

Windlift has a five-year, $30 million, research contract with the Naval Research Laboratory to develop its autonomous tethered Navy and Marine Corps operations. A little more than $11 million of that grant is footing the bill for the company to refine its prototype and showcase its technology to the Department of Defense.

Plugging West Virginia’s abandoned and orphaned wells

Tens of thousands of orphaned oil and gas wells dot West Virginia. Even with a potential boost of millions of federal dollars, the state doesn’t have the resources to clean them up.

Pace of cyclone strengthening has doubled since 1971

A study from Rowan University in New Jersey has drawn a connection between the number of rapidly strengthening tropical Atlantic hurricanes in recent years and documented increases in ocean temperatures.

Corn harvests in the Yukon? Study finds that climate change will boost likelihood that wilderness gives way to agriculture

As new areas become suitable for planting, researchers predict that vast swaths of biodiversity will be at risk, particularly in northern regions and the tropics.

Lawmakers want answers on damage and costs linked to idled ‘zombie’ coal mines

Sen. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat, joins a call for a national GAO investigation into a problem that could fall to taxpayers to solve.

From our Newsroom
800,000 tons of radioactive waste from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry has gone “missing”

800,000 tons of radioactive waste from Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry has gone “missing”

Poor recordkeeping on hazardous waste disposal points to potential for bigger problems, according to a new study.

drought climate farming

Opinion: Climate change and soil loss — the new Dust Bowl?

How we can save our soil, stabilize the climate, and prevent a new Dust Bowl.

climate change health care

Severe flooding increasingly cutting people off from health care

Many more Americans will find themselves regularly cut off from essential services, rescue workers and health care long before water actually reaches their homes, a recent study predicts.

Heat, air pollution and climate change … oh my! Was summer 2023 the new normal?

Heat, air pollution and climate change … oh my! Was summer 2023 the new normal?

Intense heat waves induced by climate change create favorable conditions for air pollution to worsen. Scientists say this isn’t likely to change unless action is taken.

environmental justice

LISTEN: Robbie Parks on why hurricanes are getting deadlier

"In places where there are high minority populations they bear, by far, the most burden of deaths from tropical cyclones."

children nature

Opinion: When kids feel the magic of nature, they will want to protect it

Improving our quality of life starts with the simple of act of getting kids outdoors.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.