Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- Chomsky said climate change and nuclear war are the two main existential threats facing humanity.
- The Republican Party and Trump are not only failing to address climate change, but also are choosing to make it worse, according to Chomsky.
- Polling data show that American Republicans seem to be growing slightly more skeptical about climate change and climate science.
In 2016, renowned linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky said the modern Republican Party is “the most dangerous organization” in human history.
That’s mainly because, as he wrote in 2017, President Donald Trump and his Republican allies are not only failing to address climate change—the principal existential threat facing humanity, in addition to nuclear war, according to Chomsky—but also are choosing to race toward the precipice of catastrophe as quickly as possible, in the interest of short-term profits.
Chomsky elaborated on these concerns in a recent interview with Scientific American. The controversial critic told science writer John Horgan that a September 2018 report from Trump’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration qualifies as “a contender for the most evil document in history.”
That report predicted the planet would warm by 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century—a catastrophic forecast by any standard—but also said the administration isn’t planning to do anything about it.
“It presented a rational argument: extrapolating current trends, by the end of the century we’ll be over the cliff and automotive emissions don’t contribute very much to the catastrophe – the assumption being that everyone is as criminally insane as we are and won’t try to avoid the crisis,” Chomsky said. “In brief, let’s rob while the planet burns, putting poor Nero in the shadows.”
Chomsky said the administration’s pursuit of money over stability makes it superlatively malicious.
“There…
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