Forget The Anthropocene - Welcome To The Idiocene

[hatrack]

EDIT

This past week, while the news media obsessed over two genuinely important stories – the “Muslim Ban” and the Supreme Court appointment – here’s what fell into the shadows:

Congress rescinded a rule requiring transparency in oil companies' payments to foreign governments. Let's assume Secretary of State Tillerson is okay with this.

An EPA transition team leader floated the notion of firing two-thirds of the agency’s staff.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists pushed its “Doomsday Clock” thirty seconds closer to midnight.

The leading U.S. diplomat on the Arctic quietly walked away from the Chairmanship of the multi-nation Arctic Council

An executive order directed federal agencies to abolish two regulations for every one new one it creates – a sort of buy one, get one free for the Koch Brothers.

Trump promised pharmaceutical executives that the Food and Drug Administration would face a regulatory purge.

The Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline projects were revived by Executive Order.

Congress voted to overturn the Stream Protection Rule, which guards 6,000 miles of American streams from surface mine runoff.

The potential gutting, or outright abolition, of the Endangered Species Act.

The House Science Committee announced a hearing titled “Making the EPA Great Again.”

Each of these items got covered. Then they went away, while the national conversation from network newscasts to trending Twitter stories featured the Ban, and such Earth-shattering figures as LeBron James, Beyoncé and Punxsutawney Phil.

And chances are that someone who reads an environmental page like this one would already know these things. But beyond the small circle of us who follow this stuff closely, the rollbacks, science purges, and outright denial of scientific fact will continue, buried at the bottom of a broad heap of absurdity.

EDIT

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2017/feb/commentary-forget-the-anthropocene.-welcome-to-the-idiocene

[Chiquitita]

1. Kick.

This is the sort of news and info. I look for from DU. We seriously need to get to work sharing important information and paying attention to it.

[pscot]

2. it sucks to be us

[Bayard]

3. I think a lot of bad things are going on behind the scene

There will continue to be smoke screens--albeit nasty ones--put out to say, "look over here", while the wrecking ball is operating over there. Transparency be damned. Rump is just a useful stooge at the moment, and when his handiwork is done, he'll be gone.

[GliderGuider]

4. Laideees and Gentlemennnnn.... Welcome to The Eschaton!

Our show is running a little ahead of schedule, but we hope you will sit back and take it all in!
When the performance is over, there will be a free apocalypse for everyone!