Conspiracies, conservatives, climate and catastrophe

AFTER the devastation wreaked by Harvey on Houston - devastation that was right in line with meteorologists' predictions - you might have expected everyone to take heed when the same experts warned about the danger posed by Hurricane Irma. But you would have been wrong.

On Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh accused weather scientists of inventing Irma's threat for political and financial reasons: "There is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it," he declared, adding that "fear and panic" help sell batteries, bottled water and TV advertising.

He evacuated his Palm Beach mansion soon afterward.

In a way, we should be grateful to Limbaugh for at least raising the subject of climate change and its relationship to hurricanes, if only because it's a topic the Trump administration is trying desperately to avoid. For example, Scott Pruitt, the pollution- and polluter-friendly head of the Environmental Protection Agency, says now is not the time to bring up the subject - that doing so is "insensitive" to the people of Florida. Needless to say, for people like him, there wil…