This is an opinion piece with a red hot flamebait title and a buried lede. Surely there's a better way to start this conversation on HN.
If the story started and ended with hard facts, interpretation, and interview, it would be less painful to read and more effective in conveying the point.
The way it's written, I'd be surprised if a healthy 20% of readers would reach the actual news: that the horizon for the government's first-party predictions of climate change is being shortened to about twenty years rather than about eighty. That would be something specific that you could make up your own mind about, instead of adopting the tedious framing, and something you could take up with your representatives and your community.
Any journalist that calls the President of the US "Mr." instead of "President" is trying to belittle them.
If they writer showed respect and stuck to facts instead of baiting, then it would be more impactful to thoughtful and intelligent people.
Since that is not how it is written, it comes across as an appeal to emotion.
It’s common elsewhere too. Here is a cbs news article talking about the style (using Mr. Obama in this case). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-pr...
Discrediting the article’s tone is easier than attacking its conclusions, but that’s not how we have a productive discussion, and I hope we can agree it’s not useful.
I pointed out that the article was appealing to baser instincts by it's writing methods.
Everyone who think's I support Trump (I don't) or think climate change is hoax (I don't) assumed this. Nothing in my comment indicates this.
Maybe people downvote based on emotions as well?