Margaret Wente's Climate Conversion: From Denial to Despair

Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente, who was still contesting the science of climate change [1] as recently as last December, has become a convert.

In her column today (we regret that the Globe finds her prose too precious to share online) she begins by saying:

"Last week a clear-headed woman (Frances Cairncross, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science) got up and said in public what no politician, not even Stephen Harper, is brave enough to say.

Her message: We should stop pretending that we can prevent climate change. No matter what we do, global warming is inevitable. Slowing the process is important - but we should also start figuring out how we're going to adapt."

Unfortunately, this revelation has not moved Wente to actually want to take action. In fact, she seems to dismiss her own injunctive that "slowing the process is important," saying:

"The notion that we can meaningfully alter the course of climate change anytime soon is a piece of stupifying hubris."

Certainly the DeSmogBlog would never challenge Wente's expertise when it comes to stupifying hubris. Still, it seems disingenuous for her to go from a position of saying, climate change is too complicated, so we should ignore it, to saying, climate change is too far gone, so, well, we should ignore it.

Actually, Wente does make tiny inroads on the question of adaptation, but you have to wonder what relevance "tougher rules about building on flood plains" is going to have for 60 million Bangladeshis.

Wente concludes today's lesson with this:

"Caircross has one other case to make. She argues that we desperately need to improve scientific literacy among the public, so that citizens will have a better understanding of environmental issues. I'll second that. Maybe we can include the politicians, too."

Would it be too obvious to add newspaper columnists to that list?