US trapped in disaster movie thanks to climate snubs

AMERICA has always felt as much like a movie set as a real country.

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From New York to Disneyland, its sweeping frontier plains to its grand canyons.

Everywhere you go are familiar sights and iconic landmarks from the big screen, a place where it's never been hard for fantasy to trump reality.

It's the home of Hollywood, where now even politics is just another arc in a grand plot.

And increasingly the American genre of choice is 'disaster movie'.

There’s a scene in George Clooney's 2000 film where after days trapped inside the ‘Perfect Storm’, there is a chink in the angry clouds.

A shaft of sunshine lights the faces of the exhausted fishermen.

But just as the Hollywood happy ending seems on, the storm clouds close over once more.

KNEEJERK

“It's not going to let us out,” says Clooney's boat captain Billy Tyne.

It's where America seems to now find itself. Trapped inside a perfect storm of ignorance with no way to avert disaster.

Donald Trump's supporters reacted with fury when links were drawn from last week's tragedy in Texas to his administration's attacks on science.

Over 100 people died in raging floodwaters, including 27 kids and counsellors attending Camp Mystic, a summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe river.