Irish Examiner view: Fraying fabric of civil discourse

Charlie Kirk's killing could well be the tipping point that provokes a perilous period characterised by political reckonings and vengeance

Charlie Kirk’s killing cannot be allowed to be the touchstone where a spiralling cycle of violence becomes a foregone conclusion and where those at the extremities of political debate pull the rest of the country over the edge and into a vortex of even greater calamity. File picture: Lynne Sladky/AP

America’s descent into its political heart of darkness will be further accelerated by the assassination of Donald Trump acolyte and Maga poster boy Charlie Kirk on a university campus in Utah on Wednesday.

The value of shared understanding in US politics seems long to have been abandoned in favour of targeted polarisation, the coarsening of public debate, and the deliberate inflammation of people’s fears and insecurities. It has rocked the country to its foundations. Kirk’s murder, despicable and brutal as it was, is yet another indicator of the breakdown of normalcy across what used to be the greatest and proudest democracy the world had.

Acts of violence, targeting figures on both the left and right of the political spectrum, have been piling up across America in recent years. Kirk’s killing, however, could well be the tipping point that provokes a perilous period characterised by political reckonings and vengeance.

Never before in the near 250 years of its existence has America’s vaunted democracy faced such radicalised opinion and a growing support for violence. The fabric of civil discourse seems to have frayed beyond repair.

Kirk’s killing cannot be allowed to be the touchstone where a spiralling cycle of violence becomes a foregone conclusion and where those at the extremities of political debate pull the rest of the country over the edge and into a vortex of even greater calamity.

Those voices of reason that still exist across America’s political spectrum — sadly few and far between — now have to make clear their rejection of political violence and extremism. With a president that calls political opponents “scum” and his detractors maintaining he is little other than a fascist, the deepening gulch between what is acceptable and what is not will only widen further with the partisans calling the tune to the squeezed centre.

Kirk was a proud partisan and a right-wing cheerleader, but America can ill afford to allow him become a martyr whose death sparks a constitutional meltdown and a gradual brick-by-brick demolition of democratic norms.

Cool heads are needed if the country is to keep the lid on the sort of extremism that could see it disintegrate into anarchy.

No more maybes 

For the very first time — although it was widely suspected and broadly implicated — Big Oil’s part in accelerated climate change has been nailed down.

New research, published in the journal Nature, shows that carbon emissions from the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies is directly linked to dozens of deadly heatwaves.

The analysis also points the way forward in the legal battle to hold the largest fossil fuel and cement producers accountable for the damage being caused by climate change.

It has indicated that the emissions from any one of the top 14 fossil fuel companies were, by themselves, more than enough to cause 50 heatwaves that otherwise would have been virtually impossible. Global heating is making heatwaves more frequent and more intense, contributing to more than 500,000 heat-related deaths per year.

The research showed that the searing heatwave that hit the Pacific North-West of the US in 2021 was made almost 3C hotter. This ability to trace the contribution of these major carbon emitters and quantify their contribution will be very handy when it comes to establishing liability. The study effectively connects the dots between specific climate disasters and the companies whose emissions made them possible.

This could the key to holding polluters responsible.

Being able to specify that certain emitters are triggering heatwaves in which real people died, real crops failed, and real communities suffered, makes it possible to pinpoint who was at fault.

At a time when Big Oil has been emboldened to renege on its emission commitments and roll back policies which could prevent heatwaves and other climatic disasters, it is a huge positive for the globe as a whole that the guilty parties can be readily identified and taken to task.

Jabs save lives 

One of the primary voices of reason throughout the covid pandemic has lent his authority against the growing — and often dangerous — anti-vaccination rhetoric.

The World Health Organization’s deputy director general, Mike Ryan, yesterday said that while the anti-vaccination movement existed long before covid ever happened, it had evolved and become amplified since the pandemic.

The world is watching as Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US secretary for health and human services, systematically undermines vaccines and their obvious benefits.

While he believes human beings have the right to question what goes into their bodies, Ryan also maintained that false information was colouring the whole issue.

He maintained that, in some quarters, the question of vaccinating was being turned into an ideological concept where people were being bombarded with false information.

The truth is that — along with the lives they protect — vaccines also save money. Spending money on vaccines avoids spending much more on treatment.

Consider the HPV shot that prevents cervical cancer. Girls who get two doses before they are sexually active are protected against the human papillomavirus, which can start chronic genital infections and can convert some cells into
tumours.

In the early 20th century, cervical cancer killed more women than breast cancer, lung cancer, or skin cancer. The HPV vaccination could eliminate cervical cancer by 2035.

Ryan, who retires today, asserts that while there is need for healthy debate on vaccines, we need to trust science when the data tells us these are safe and effective interventions.

He is right: The truth is that vaccinations have saved more lives than any other form of medical intervention.

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