Perhaps the story can begin with the way an “aide to [President] George W. Bush [apparently Karl Rove] spoke dismissively of “the reality-based community.” Rove, in an interview with reporter Ron Suskind, contrasted that “reality-based” approach (which starts with a careful study of the real circumstances in which one is acting) with the way of the Bush gang: “[W]hen we act, we create our own reality.”
This was in 2004, before it was yet fully manifest how profoundly reality was going to punish the Bushites — and the nation they were leading — for their hubris in “creating their own reality” with their invasion of Iraq.
The story of the right’s growing refusal to respect reality surely must include how the right has been dealing with climate change.
On certain kinds of questions, science is clearly the most powerful tool that humankind has come up with for learning about reality. The question, “What’s happening in the earth’s climate system?” falls squarely within science’s proper realm. And the climate scientists, after letting reality speak to them, are raising an alarm the likes of which humankind has never before heard from that precinct.