Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson made a fool of himself recently as he attempted to make climate change a good thing. What was evident in the back and forth was an incomprehensible selfishness and unawareness of the global impact of climate change.
Ron Johnson exposes his willful climate ignorance.
I ran across the following tweet where the genius Senator Ron Johnson was making it clear he thought climate change, specifically global warming, would be good for the U.S.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says climate change will be good for the U.S. because it will be less cold: “Global warming will actually be beneficial … Why wouldn’t we take comfort in that? … Y’know, concerned if you’re in the hot region of Africa … but we’re in good shape.”
Dr. Michael Greenstone, an American economist and distinguished professor at the University of Chicago, schooled the Senator on his severely flawed interpretation of climate science and the uneven effect of climate change.
The professor first threw him a conciliatory bone to prevent the Senator’s inept statement from fully embarrassing him.
“What the work shows, and the chart is that the effects of climate change are going to be very unequal,” the professor said. “And absolutely Wisconsin, Chicago where I live, the reduction in cold days, the benefits from that will outweigh the damages from the hot days.”
But then the professor schooled him.
“If you look more carefully at that, there’re large swatches of the country where the damages will be much larger,” the professor said. “And in fact …”
Johnson interrupted the professor in an attempt to give the full answer. He did not want America to see his snow job exposed. So he went into the number-of-deaths game to misinform on associations used wrongly. In effect, the Senator said increasing the temperature would be a good thing.
“Your characterization of it is incorrect,” the professor responded to the Senator’s silly statements. “Wisconsin will benefit in terms of mortality. There are 49 other states in the United States. Many of them will suffer. Many of them will suffer more than Wisconsin will gain. And that is the nature of climate change. It’s very unequal.”
This is the type of narrative we are fighting. It’s not serious, but it is dangerous, especially in a society that is trying to dumb down the population in order to better control them on the path to fascism.
Viewers are encouraged to subscribe and join the conversation for more insightful commentary and to support progressive messages. Together, we can populate the internet with progressive messages that represent the true aspirations of most Americans.