Bill McKibben on Irene and climate change

December 28, 2011
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Democracy Now once again demonstrated its ability to connect the dots–in this case on climate change. In an interview with Bill McKibben on Hurricane Irene, Amy Goodman remarks:

We did not hear those words, “global warming.” I watched a lot of the media coverage this weekend. What about this? I mean, to say the least, there was time in the endless coverage. 

That the dots are not being connected by the mainstream media is deeply disappointing because it is precisely what the IPCC was predicting all the time: Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis 3.8.3 Evidence for Changes in Tropical Storms

And McKibben points out that it is not just about Irene. Irene is not the only climate event in which you can see these projections playing out. 

You remember the pictures from Pakistan this time last summer, with a quarter of the country underwater. You remember the pictures from Queensland in Australia. You remember the pictures earlier this year in the Missouri and Mississippi River Basins, which saw more water go down them than ever before. 

It’s incredible how all of this is passed through the commercial media as if it’s all just an unpredictable force of nature. McKibben is right when he says all of those predictable extreme weather condition are wake-up calls. Unfortunately, since the commercial media isn’t communicating those calls, ordinary people won’t be listening. 

Read more about the Alberta tar sands here: TarSandsAction.org

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