'And So I Came To Feel Miserably Conflicted About Climate Change'

Now is the time when we juxtapose, Small Dead Animals-style:

If you want to understand why so many Democrats believe it’s okay to circumvent Congress and let international agreements dictate environmental policies—well, other than their newfound respect for monocracy—you don’t have to look much farther than the new poll by Gallup.Since 1989, there’s been no significant change in the public’s concern level over global warming. To put this in perspective, note that the most expensive public-relations campaign in history—one that includes most governmental agencies, a long list of welfare-sucking corporations, the public school system, the universities, an infinite parade of celebrities, think tanks, well-funded environmental groups and an entire major political party—has, over the past 25 years or so, increased the number of Democrats who “worry greatly” about global warming by a mere four percentage points.

During this era, they’ve gone from gentle nudging to stern warnings, to fearmongering, to conflating the predictive abilities of scientists with science itself, to launching ugly campaigns to shame and shut down anyone who deviates from liberal orthodoxy—which includes not only the existence of anthropogenic global warming, but an entire ideological framework that supposedly “addresses” the problem.

—“The Campaign To Make You Care About Climate Change Is Failing Miserably: The number of Democrats who ‘worry greatly’ has increased by four percentage points in 25 years,” David Harsanyi, the Federalist, March 26.

And it’s wreaking havoc with the nervous systems of the true believers:

“And so I came to feel miserably conflicted about climate change. I accepted its supremacy as the environmental issue of our time, but I felt bullied by its dominance. Not only did it make every grocery-store run a guilt trip; it made me feel selfish for caring more about birds in the present than about people in the future. What were the eagles and the condors killed by wind turbines compared with the impact of rising sea levels on poor nations? What were the endemic cloud-forest birds of the Andes compared with the atmospheric benefits of Andean hydroelectric projects?”

—Jonathan Franzen, “someone who cares more about birds than the next man,” in the New Yorker. (Link safe, goes to Kate of Small Dead Animals, who adds an appropriate “world’s smallest violin” gif to the quote.)

And as with Indiana pizza parlors, dissent will not be tolerated by the religious left, who must banish heretics to the cornfield at all costs:

Heya @Twitchy @Support Help FREE TOM NELSON! #ClimateSceptic jailed AGAIN! #TwitterGulag @DRUDGE @GWPF @MarkSteynOnline @TwitchyTeam

— Ima Debatin’ (@ImaBannedd) April 1, 2015

Update: “Economics Is a Form of Brain Damage,” Steve Hayward writes at Power Line:

That slogan, which you can see on display in this 1993 full-page New York Times ad nearby, is making a comeback of sorts on the left. A generation ago it was the slogan of the environmental left, which hates the fact that we live in a world of tradeoffs, and which thinks we live in a world where the only unlimited resource is other people’s money. The late David Brower was quoting environmental activist Hazel Henderson in that expensive ad; Henderson said at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 that when the green revolution finally comes, economists would be rounded up and sent to re-education camps.

Where, if the left has their way, they’ll be joined by Indiana pizza parlor owners.