President Barack Obama recently attended a commencement ceremony for the University of California, Irvine at the Angels Stadium in Anaheim, California. With the students, he mentioned the cold, hard reality that there are many politicians that deny climate changeÂ’s existence altogether. This compromises climate change mitigation efforts (which is most likely their goal).
He mentioned that people didnÂ’t deny the science behind space travel which was used to get to the moon, despite concerns that space travel would be too expensive. Yet today, ignorant politicians deny the vast majority of the scientific communityÂ’s conclusion that climate change is real. That marks a new-found lack of respect for science which is reminiscent of flat-Earthers.
As Obama said:
When President Kennedy Â… set us on a course for the moon, there were a number of people who made a serious case that it wouldnÂ’t be worth it Â… but nobody ignored the science. I donÂ’t remember anybody saying that the moon wasnÂ’t there, or that it was made of cheese. TodayÂ’s Congress, though, is full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence about climate change. They will tell you it is a hoax, or a fad.
Some others avoid the issue by asserting that theyÂ’re not scientists, which isnÂ’t very helpful when they could simply listen to the scientists.
