For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.





I’ve always considered it arrogant of humankind to burn enough fossil fuel to kill off half the earth’s species. But the NASA chief would call me arrogant for judging. What’s really arrogant, he says, is assuming that climate change won’t be for the better. So NASA doesn’t prioritize studying climate change from space in its $17 billion budget.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, a Bush appointee, tells NPR:

I have no doubt that…a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with…. I would ask which human beings—where and when—are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Right. Why won’t future generations be better off after the sixth great extinction? What’s wrong with displacing 1 billion of the world’s poorest people? Who are we to judge?