notion

But there was something even more significant: For a generation, conservatives — not just the far right, which Crusius appeared to identify with — had propelled the notion that climate change was a hoax fabricated so the government could impose new restrictions on the economy and society.

He took a similarly methodical approach to dismantling the notion that the United States should continue to be a beacon for immigrants.

But it was the Sierra Club, influenced by its first executive director, David Brower, that emerged as a leading proponent of the notion that the earth had a carrying capacity — that there was an optimum number for the planet’s population to be held at.

Kolankiewicz, for one, was fascinated by studies of the carbon legacy of families — the emerging notion that a person’s carbon footprint would multiply through generations and that the best way to reduce emissions was to have one less child.

It was a logical notion but shaky science.