A piece in Yale Climate Connections asks “When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?” When, not whether. Over at Euronews Green it’s “‘Society and the environment are suffering’ as climate change triples chance of extreme wildfires”. Reuters “Sustainable Switch” emails that “extreme weather continues to plague nations around the world.” A Guardian fundraising email says “In many parts of the world, this has been another summer of devastating, extreme heat – having a catastrophic impact on the planet and all that lives on it.” Actually this summer hasn’t been hot in many places including much of the U.S., no matter how red they paint the map, to the point that AccuWeather recently wondered “When might summer weather return to the northeastern US?” But we seem to have moved from the realm of evidence-based decision-making into an alarmist nirvana where we are one with the panic on an elevated plane where the noise and annoyance of samsara can no longer reach us. Or, as the Guardian put it in another fundraiser, “At the Guardian, we believe the climate crisis poses a threat to all humanity, and that the science is not up for debate.” And if it were, we can’t heeeeear you la la la la la.

Thus over at the New York Times, “Climate Forward” columnist David Gelles says:

“It was another summer weekend in America, complete with wildfires in California, flash floods in Connecticut and violent storms in Tennessee. Yet even as climate change is hitting home for more and more Americans, the issue remains a relatively low priority for many.”

A better way of saying it is that because climate change is “hitting home”, and is turning out to be an overstated dud, the issue remains a low priority for many. ABC shares this attitude, kicking off what seems to think it’s a news story with:

“As voters prepare to head to the polls in November, inflation, foreign policy and reproductive rights have dominated the national conversation, with environmental policy failing to emerge as a major ballot issue. But with climate change fueling more damaging and deadly weather events, experts question if the effects of global warming have fallen victim to over-politicization on the national stage.”

A more straightforward read on the evidence would be that they’re not happening so people aren’t up in arms about them. But no. We have a red-tinted picture of a firefighter right here in our story. And:

“In the countdown to the election, wildfires are raging across the West, tropical storms have threatened the East and unprecedented temperatures are affecting much of the nation.”

Raging, no less. Not like the old days when wildfires seeped. And storms “have threatened the East” rather than actually hitting it, as predictions of a massive Atlantic hurricane season are fizzling for a second straight year. But in our minds it’s all there:

“‘There is nothing that's going to affect people's health, livelihood and safety more than environmental issues,’ Paul Anastas, a professor in Yale University's School of the Environment and former chief scientist in the Environmental Protection Agency, told ABC News. ‘That is not the way it's being addressed publicly, but I think it needs to be,’ Anastas added, maintaining that if climate change were characterized as a health and safety issue, it wouldn't be as divisive among [sic but surely “along”] party lines.’”

See, we just need to find the right way to talk down to those dopey voters.