So you have a stubborn old right wing uncle. You know the one I’m talking about. He’s the guy who gets all his insights into the world from Fox, thinks Rush Limbaugh is Prophet Isaiah reincarnated, and would join Donald Trump base jumping from the top of Trump Tower in a snow storm
How do you reply when he claims that all sorts of scientists have proven that climate change is a hoax?
How about this?
Let’s say you went to ten doctors and had a full examination. Nine of them told you point blank you were suffering an extremely aggressive form of cancer, your life was in danger, and you needed to be treated immediately. But one doctor told you that you were in great health and there was nothing that should concern you.
The nine doctors who warned you of impending doom unless drastic action were taken, all work for respected independent medical facilities, hospitals, research labs, universities.
The one doctor who had buckets of good news happens to work for the insurance company who would have to pay for your medical bills.
Which advice would you heed?
Would you go out and celebrate, have a few drinks, maybe smoke a pack of cigarettes?
Or would you be first in line next morning at the clinic to begin treatment?
There is overwhelming agreement in the legitimate scientific community — the clearly objective, independent, unbiased centers for study and research — that climate change is real and it is largely being caused by humans. While the public for various reasons lags in grasping the extent and immediacy of the crisis, over 97% of climate science researchers agree. Less than 3% of the literature on climate change challenges this huge consensus.
And guess where the nay-sayers come from?
They belong in that same suspicious category of compromised, non-objective, “interested” parties as that doctor who works for the health insurance company — the one that probably got a bonus for telling you everything was fine and you didn’t need medical help.
The bulk of climate change denial studies is generated by bought-and-paid-for lackeys who WORK FOR THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY!
So as the title of my article suggests . . . let’s try to figure this out.
Who should we listen to?
The 10,000+ scholars who have published thousands of pier-reviewed research papers which declare we have a problem?
Or the handful of deniers, many of whom have published articles which have not passed the standards of pier-review, but who probably live quite affluently with the money they get from oil, gas, and coal companies?
Speaking of self-serving deceptions, the climate agreement recently reached at COP21, the international climate conference in Paris at the end of last year, was a PR stunt. Respected climatologist James Hansen calls it a total fraud. It has no teeth, is not legally binding, has no fines or penalties for irresponsible deviations from its nice-sounding, highly-acclaimed guidelines for holding the temperature rise to 2˚C. Yes, it made a lot of people feel good, stuffed a lot of feathers in a lot of caps, not least of which is the one for President Obama’s historical legacy. Obama, who in his State of the Union address touted America’s and his own pivotal leadership role in shaping the final agreement, called it “the best chance to save the one planet we have.” But anyone who is actually paying attention knows that this slippery non-binding pile of happy face promises is no substitute for an absolute and genuine commitment to real, actionable, and enforceable policy realignment.
So . . . have we figured this out?
We have a combination of willful denial (ignorance), disinformation (self-righteous lying), paralysis (corporate oppression), and general apathy (sheeple power).
I don’t feel well.
Is huffing gasoline bad for the environment?
