And Our Ghosts May Be Heard

There's a haunting scene in the movie On the Beach, as fallout from a nuclear war completes it's global spread, when amidst a raucous party a song lyric suddenly breaks through:  "You'll never take me alive said he."  Defiant, and yet a moment of clarity that the end has come.

Erza Klein offers seven reasons to be a pessimist on climate change.  Basically, we've waited too long, we're not the most vulnerable, festering makes things worse, Republicans are crazy, we're focused on the short-term, international cooperation is too hard, and technology can't fix it.

And so, although the study isn't new, a reference to "An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress" serves as a reminder that some lethal mutations don't manifest themselves for quite a while.

Update (June 7):  Joe Romm responds to Klein.

Update (June 8):  Further reaction to Klein.

Update (June 9):  Paul Krugman argues that economic interests don't play as big a role as ideology in climate change denial.

So the real obstacle, as we try to confront global warming, is economic ideology reinforced by hostility to science. In some ways this makes the task easier: we do not, in fact, have to force people to accept large monetary losses. But we do have to overcome pride and willful ignorance, which is hard indeed.

Update (June 14):  The National Review tries to claim that the cost of climate change will be small.

Update (June 28):  A paper by Dan Kahan seems to support Krugman's "willful ignorance" contention.