Thread by @DoctorVive

The @nytimes should stop presenting climate denial as a legitimate political opinion. Full stop.

@deanbaquet No more hiding behind the work of @nytclimate and pretending @nytopinion is some independent entity.

That you ran this piece in 2019 is unconscionable.

[thread]

https://twitter.com/DoctorVive/status/1157627349057359872

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion I have a personal policy not to engage climate deniers, because their arguments are ideological propaganda that lie about the findings of science and will not be moved by the marshaling of evidence. But I need to make one point about the content of this OpEd.

2/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion In a minor but representative moment, Caldwell suggests that Thunberg is a mere sympton of a cultural trend in which people "have had enough of balance and perspective." This insinuation, like all the insinuations of this execrable screed, hides scientific truths.

3/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion Once again, for the cheap seats (and the editors of @nytopinion apparently) the @IPCC_CH said in October 2018 that the world must halve its emissions by 2030 and cease them entirely by 2050 if it's to have a greater than 60% chance of halting warming at 1.5 C.

4/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH For at least 66% probability to halt warming at 2C, we must draw down CO2 emissions by 25% by 2030 and reach net zero in 2070.

In other words, if we want prevent dangerous levels of global heating we have to act now.

5/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH And might I remind you, @nytimes, that your OWN CLIMATE DESK @nytclimate made it entirely clear that even 2C of warming--the absolute & unlikely best case scenario at this point--would be a catastrophe.

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

6/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH One effect of 2C warming: over 400 MILLION people in cities exposed to severe drought.

What are those people going to do? Where are they going to get their water?

7/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH Another effect of 2C warming: coral reefs mostly disappear.

One BILLION people on this planet depend on those reefs for food and livelihood.

What are *those* people going to do? What are *they* going to eat?

8/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH So, when Caldwell insinuates that @GretaThunberg is a symptom of the authoritarian, populist movement that brought us Trump, rather than a person whose message is grounded in scientific truth, he lies to stoke the fears of the Times' liberal readers.

9/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg A good faith argument that urgent decarbonization conflicts with democracy would discuss how to decarbonize quicky while upholding democractic principles. This OpEd does not do that.

10/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg This OpEd is a rhetorically sophisticated attempt to hide the science and scare people against decarbonization in order to achieve what @AlexSteffen calls predatory delay.

11/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg @AlexSteffen Caldwell asks us to "wait." If we wait we will not halt warming at 1.5 C or 2 C or at any level that the IPCC has said would be relatively safe.

Caldwell will be dead when that warming happens.

@GretaThunberg will be alive.

12/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg @AlexSteffen My son will be alive.

Perhaps the children of @JBennet will also be alive.

People in the climate movement want to keep them alive.

This is a matter of life and death.

That is not "extreme," it's just the truth.

13/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg @AlexSteffen @JBennet Look, I get that Trump and the GOP, governmental power, and many many wealthy people and others are climate deniers.

But you claim to stand up for the truth.

14/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg @AlexSteffen @JBennet And I ask you, editors all (and @HannaIngber):

Why haven't you run an OpEd arguing for the GOP policy of separating children from their parents & putting them in cages without adult caregivers, with no plan to return them to their families?

That would be an opinion too.

15/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg @AlexSteffen @JBennet @HannaIngber You know why you haven't run an OpEd supporting family separation. Because the policy is beyond the pale. It is morally repugnant.

Let me tell you that in 2019, arguments that we must wait to stop using fossil fuels & decarbonize our economies are equally beyond the pale.

16/n

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg @AlexSteffen @JBennet @HannaIngber It is unconscionable, shocking, utterly collaborationist, that your opinion editors still do not understand this.

/fin

@nytimes @deanbaquet @nytclimate @nytopinion @IPCC_CH @GretaThunberg @AlexSteffen @JBennet @HannaIngber addendum: apparently the decision to print this OpEd has nothing to do with @deanbaquet, but rests squarely on the shoulders of @JimDao and @JBennet