At Huffpo, Ted Kaufman begs us to take the issue of climate change serious, pointing readers to the websites of  serious science organizations and warning us of the horrific consequences of doing nothing.

Virtually every reputable organization of scientists in the world has reached the same basic conclusion. Climate change is real and poses a threat to every living thing on the earth. To not take climate change seriously, you must somehow believe there is a gigantic international conspiracy involving the world’s top scientists, all of whom have agreed to distort their data. Come on.

I highly respect Ted Kaufman for speaking up when we needed to hear him, both on this issue and with regard to banking reform.  He often seemed to be the lone thoughtful voice among the clowns and chaos of Congress.  He’s no longer in Congress, but I do think he’s spot on here.  Unfortunately, it seems that the people (at least the people I know) have made the leap from climate change skepticism to climate change resignation.

I remember wincing when I heard Al Gore’s line at the end of Inconvenient Truth that we shouldn’t make this leap–it seemed even then that our economic incentives are all in the wrong places and that is exactly what we would do.   I fear that is what we are now doing.   Here’s what I’m sensing out there: “Yep.  We’re destroying the Earth.  We’re destroying it in a thousand ways, and climate change is but one of these ways.  And we’re not willing to do much of anything about it.  We don’t even like the low efficiency light bulbs, so please leave us alone about this issues of climate change.”