Yes, that’s right, now we get to watch this mighty crew of irresponsibles abdicate any moral responsibility whatsoever in the necessary fight to slow and stop climate change before we lose the window of preventing a runaway catastrophe. Instead they are calibrating just how little they can plausibly do.

They are not, it should be pointed out, internally disputing the science. They know. Everybody except the last, pathetic, misinformed remnants of the anti-climate Internet troll army knows that the science is irrefutable. What they are debating here is their leeway in responsibility avoidance. The words that describe this debate are “legal implications,” “political,” “alter their commitments,” “doesn’t legally prohibit,” “more difficult,” “easier” and “American expense.”

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What you don’t find are the words “compelling,” “necessary” or “duty.” Or “disaster,” “calamity” or “tragedy. And so the fate of the climate that humans evolved to inhabit is debated and decided by the likes of these people. That’s right, these people, who think so highly of themselves, are debating convenience to their administrative ideology, rather than formulating a plan to do what they know they actually need to do to preserve a climate that the entirety of civilization is resting on.

The Paris accord may be seen by them as an inconvenient impediment, but it should be seen by the rest of us as the definitive test of whether this administration will meet or abdicate its responsibility to the human community. (It will also be all the indication we need on whether darling Ivanka Trump’s positioning as a sensible counselor to Daddy is worth anything at all when the world really needs it.)