Democrats finally passed climate legislation, does it matter?

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO Saving Planet? Global warming is not a current threat but a future one. It will cause more heat deaths, flooding and lower agricultural productivity in hot areas. But it will also result in longer growing seasons, more precipitation and fewer cold deaths in most places. Attempts to terrify people about climate change have backfired. Political posturing by celebrity activists and scientists has undermined years of important work on the matter. 

We endlessly hear the flawed assertion that because climate change is real, we should “follow the science” and end fossil fuel use.

COPENHAGEN – As George W. Bush and Tony Blair learned the hard way, the public does not take kindly to being misled about the nature of potential threats. The after-the-fact revelation that the reasons for invading Iraq were vastly exaggerated – and in some cases completely fabricated – produced an angry backlash that helped toss the Republicans out of power in the United States in 2008 and may do the same to Britain’s Labour Party later this year. A similar shift in global public opinion is occurring with respect to climate change. (...)