"Climate optimists hoped for a broad consensus in favor of measures to save the planet. But if a nation in flames isn’t enough to produce a consensus for action, what will? The Australia experience suggests that climate denial will persist come hell or high water, through devastating heat waves and catastrophic storm surges. Australia’s anti-environmentalist government seems utterly unmoved as the nightmares of environmentalists become reality; and the anti-environmentalist media, the Murdoch empire in particular, has gone all-out on disinformation, trying to place the blame on arsonists and “greenies” who won’t let fire services get rid of enough trees.You might be tempted to dismiss Australia as a special case, but the same deepening partisan division has long been underway in the United States. Powerful forces on the right are determined to keep us barreling down the road to hell."
At www.nytimes.com
