Self-Inflicted Wounds: Climate Change Edition

Two years ago, in posting about the brouhaha over the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, I noted that self-righteousness among climate advocates does not help their cause. I harbor no illusions about how widely this blog is read, but the more recent foolishness committed by Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, in impersonating a board member of the Heartland Institute in order to obtain internal emails about their anti-climate change strategy, demonstrates that climate change advocates have not lost any of their self-righteousness.

At a certain level, I sympathize with Gleick. After all, I too believe that there is overwhelming evidence supporting the conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is real. It is frustrating not to be believed, particularly when the stakes are so high. Sorry, Peter. That’s where my sympathy ends. Democracy is frustrating. And messy. And inefficient.

Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Last time I looked, however, it’s still what we are stuck with. And in a democracy, self-righteousness will always lose. It was true in 2010. It remains true in 2012. Climate change advocates are their own worst enemies.

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