Back in 1st grade, we were trained to hurl ourselves under the protective cover of our rickety school desks, built—we would appreciate only later—to withstand the full withering fury of a nuclear blast. That’s when desks were built to last. That’s when Russia was still the USSR, and we thought we knew from which way any incoming would be coming. Based on this week’s Punch and Judy show from Helsinki, I’m happy to report any residual fear of mutually assured destruction was laid to rest. With Vladimir Putin’s favorite sock puppet occupying the White House, Russia’s interests and the United States have been rendered identical; nuclear peace has been achieved.
I should be relieved. Instead, I find myself rummaging through thrift stores in search of old desks.
UCSB Professor Leah Stokes would have me believe this is a fool’s errand. The real threat, she insists, is far more ominous. She stirred things up this past week, writing a Los Angeles Times op-ed in which she chastised reporters who cover fires, debris flows, and other disasters—in other words, the weather—for leaving climate change conspicuously out of the conversation. Reporters, as a rule, don’t like to be told how to do their jobs. They like even less being told by pointy-headed academics. I get it. Stokes may have used a little too much oregano. She failed to give credit where credit is, in fact, due. But she has a point. And it’s only getting sharper.
