The Distillery: February 27, 2018

We can all use some positive news these days, especially on the environmental front in which science is considered evil, denial is an alternative fact and the EPA is now what I’m calling the Environmental Destruction Agency. And while I don’t want to gloss over the issues – there isn’t enough paint in the world to do that – I offer here The Distillery, a weekly (or thereabouts) selection of posts to help offset the PTSD of our current nightmare.

The posts I pick will be “real” in the sense that they aren’t pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, as fun as those can be, but are evidence of EcoOptimism.


A recent EcoOptimism Distillery post was on the theme of “good news disguised as bad news.” Here, perhaps, is the ultimate example of that. In spite of and maybe because of all the astoundingly bad news about Trump’s environmental “witch hunt” (to redirect his term)….

From ThinkProgress:
February 13, 2018

Poll reveals Americans are hitting their breaking point on the environment

(The previous high point – 2006 – was shortly after Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth came out.)
Image source: ThinkProgress

EcoOptimism’s take: Sure, it’d be better if public support for environmental actions was due to something positive, but this support as a reaction to the absolute illogic of Trump is encouraging. And even better, must piss off the denier-in-chief.

Here’s hoping it makes his twitter finger sore.

And in a similar vein, though media coverage of climate change still lags ridiculously behind other topics…

Also from ThinkProgress:
February 13, 2018

Trump’s climate denial backfires, drives more media coverage of the issue

Image source: MediaMatters

EcoOptimism’s take: The post’s subtitle kinda says it all. “How the president is getting more people to think and talk about climate change.” The post then explains: “Trump is driving TV coverage of climate change, and as a result, he is raising the profile of the issue. Last year’s spike in coverage of climate change corresponded with an uptick in public concern. Worry about climate change is now at an all-time high across several polls.” (As shown in the article and graph above.) But it also goes on to say “News outlets gave an uncontested platform to climate deniers.” And Media Matters, the data source for the post, said “The networks undercovered or ignored the ways that climate change had real-life impacts….”

I guess that makes it a qualified “good news disguised as bad news.”

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