{"id":32240,"date":"2018-04-29T11:16:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-29T18:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=32240"},"modified":"2018-04-29T11:16:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-29T18:16:45","slug":"everyday-erinyes-120","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/29\/everyday-erinyes-120\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday Erinyes # 120"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are <strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Alecto<\/span><\/strong>, <strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Megaera<\/span><\/strong>, and <strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Tisiphone<\/span><\/strong>. These roughly translate as &#8220;unceasing,&#8221; &#8220;grudging,&#8221; and &#8220;vengeful destruction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Last month, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/environment\/2018\/03\/leaked-memo-epa-gives-its-employees-talking-points-on-how-to-downplay-climate-science\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the EPA (you know, the Environmental Pollution Agency)<\/a> sent an emailed memo to<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-32245\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/epa-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/epa-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/epa-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/epa.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> employees prescribing how to discuss climate change. Because, you know, \u201cAdministrator Pruitt encourages an open, transparent debate on climate science.\u201d Mother Jones obtained the actual email and I quote it in full, with the emphasis which the sender indicated included, and no additional emphasis of mine.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>QQ Dear Colleagues:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>During the recent meeting of our Cross-EPA Work Group on Climate Adaptation, several individuals suggested it would be helpful to develop consistent messages about EPA\u2019s climate adaptation efforts that could be used across all Program and Regional Offices. I\u2019m pleased to report that the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) has developed a set of talking points about climate change that include several related to climate adaptation. These talking points were distributed today by Nancy Grantham (OPA) to the Communications Directors and the Regional Public Affairs Directors.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The following are the talking points distributed by OPA. I have highlighted those relating specifically to our adaptation work.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>EPA recognizes the challenges that communities face in adapting to a changing climate.<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>EPA works with state, local, and tribal governments to improve infrastructure to protect against the consequences of climate change and natural disasters.<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>EPA also promotes science that helps inform states, municipalities, and tribes on how to plan for and respond to extreme events and environmental emergencies.<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Moving forward, EPA will continue to advance its climate adaptation efforts, and has reconvened the cross-EPA Adaptation Working Group in support of those efforts.<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Human activity impacts our changing climate in some manner. The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>While there has been extensive research and a host of published reports on climate change, clear gaps remain including our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about it.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>As a key regulatory voice, it is important for the Agency to strive for a better understanding of these gaps given their potential significant influence on our country\u2019s domestic economic viability<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Administrator Pruitt encourages an open, transparent debate on climate science.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Best regards,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-32249\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/joel-300x123.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"123\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/joel-300x123.png 300w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/joel-150x62.png 150w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/joel-768x316.png 768w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/joel.png 996w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Joel<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Joel D. Scheraga, Ph.D<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Senior Advisor for Climate Adaptation<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Office of Policy<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Dear Furies, &#8211; You know what to do.<\/p>\n<p>The Furies and I will be back.<\/p>\n<p>Cross posted to Care2 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.care2.com\/news\/member\/101612212\/4101991\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/29\/everyday-erinyes-120\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":18437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}