EDITORIAL: On dumpster fire: A nation at war with itself amid climate disaster

Nov. 27--From the smoldering California forests to the surging Gulf Stream floodwaters, this land suffers in the grip of a changing climate whose already steady ravages will only accelerate as sea levels rise further and temperatures sharpen their upward trajectory. Count it in dollars (a projected $259 billion drained out of the economy), lives lost or regions ruined, a toll already vast will metastasize into burdens on the United States at a scale never before seen.

This dead-serious doomsday message, all 1,600-plus pages of it, is brought to you by 13 agencies of the U.S. government -- yessiree, the same federal government whose chief executive Monday said of the behemoth Fourth National Climate Assessment: "I don't believe it. I don't believe it."

What's unbelievable is that the America First! President who in less than two years has tossed words of condolence and the odd paper towel roll to the people of Puerto Rico, Texas, Florida and a swath of the West digs the hole of climate change denial deeper and deeper as the evidence amassed by scientists and lived by the American people grows more and more, well, undeniable.

Only in Donald Trump's overheated America can the Environmental Protection Agency simultaneously employ scientists who helped compile the catalog of projected climate damage and an acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, who's moving to roll back rules that discourage burning climate-wrecking coal.

La-la-la-la-la what was that?

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