Saturday, July 07, 2012

Al Gore's former foreign affairs spokesman suggests that derechos are something new; criticizes Gore for partisanship and tendency to "lay down the law like an Old Testament prophet"

ROSSHIRT: The Tricky Politics of Climate Change - Sahuarita Sun: Columns

A "derecho," according to the news coverage, is "a fast-moving, long-lived, large, violent thunderstorm complex."

 

When climate events force a new word into the common vocabulary, it's another sign that the weather is getting weirder.

...At the same time, Gore also tends to think in biblical terms. As he was writing the 1998 speech he gave at the Chernobyl Museum in Ukraine, he was trying to capture the meaning of the exclusion zone created around the radioactive power plant. A few hours before the speech, he came up with this: "As from Eden, we have been banished."

So Gore, with faith in science and certitude in his faith, tends to lay down the law like an Old Testament prophet. "Change your ways or perish" is a message he delivers with conviction and perhaps sometimes some unseemly relish....Making climate change a partisan issue delays action as much as denial does. Being nonpartisan in this case is not only noble but also the only way to get what we need.

Tom Rosshirt was a national security speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and a foreign affairs spokesman for Vice President Al Gore.

Derecho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The word was first used in the American Meteorological Journal in 1888 by Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs in a paper describing the phenomenon and based on a significant derecho event that crossed Iowa on 31 July 1877

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