Climate Change Is Accelerating:

The World Meteorological Organization issued its annual state of the global climate report this week and it was not good news. “Things are getting worse,” said Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization. “It’s more urgent than ever to proceed with mitigation. The only solution is to get rid of fossil fuels in power production, industry and transportation,” he said.

The report points out how the effects of climate change are accelerating. Seas are rising due to glaciers melting faster than predicted. Projections show that the Arctic will be ice free in the summers in about 10 years. Permafrost thought to be permanently frozen is now melting. The melting is uncovering remains of humans as well as animals extinct long ago. Unfortunately, the thawing is also releasing huge amounts of stored carbon into the atmosphere, which accelerates global warming and ice melt.

Forest fires are burning out of control, releasing carbon filled smoke into the atmosphere and killing carbon-eating plants. Persistent droughts are happening in many places. That kills plants as well as the crops humans eat. And, the droughts create fuel for wildfires. In the other extreme, climate change is causing record flooding in Europe and Africa. Greenland, known ironically for its ice, is in the middle of a heat wave. And the sea is rising. Miami is experiencing water from the sea coming up in storm drains today.

A few years ago, after the Copenhagen Summit and the signing of the Paris Climate Treaty, there was hope. Big carbon producers like the US, the EU, China and India agreed to cut emissions. Then, Trump pulled the US out of the accord. The rest of the world stayed in, but due to lack of American leadership, they are doing little to reduce carbon. In fact, carbon emissions are greater in all those countries, including the US, than they were at the signing of the Paris Treaty.

When every scientist not on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry or a Republican-backed group, warns about the consequences of not acting, why aren’t we acting? All one needs to do is follow the money. Climate Change is very profitable for some, but deadly to others. Greed, not science, is running the show and politicians adroitly follow.

Who benefits? First, companies who make and sell building products benefit from disasters. Every hurricane, fire, or flood requires re-building. Construction companies benefit. They are kept busy re-building. Power line companies benefit because there is non-stop work restoring power lines. Power companies and gas companies benefit because spot shortages are an excuse to raise prices. Manufacturers of trailers and temporary housing benefit because they supply the required temporary housing. Banks make money on interest on loans for the re-building. That offsets loses from mortgages on destroyed homes because they have insurance. Insurance companies come out ok because they get to raise rates on everyone.

Now we come to the big money and that is the fossil fuel industry. Just as the tobacco companies were well aware of the deaths their products were causing, the fossil fuel industry knows their products are mostly responsible for the greenhouse gasses causing climate change. Just as with the tobacco companies, the industry is not willing to forego profit to save hundreds of thousands of lives. So, following tobacco’s lead, they hire scientists to come up with cooked data, not to convince anyone, but just to sow enough doubt to give the politicians political cover to deny that man and fossil fuels are mostly to blame.

There is an expression “they drank the Kool Aide.” That applies to the people who choose to peddle cooked data which flies in the face of legitimate science. Politicians, who want the power of office, are happy to drink the Kool aide to get the money and backing that puts m and keeps them in office. Some cable news networks peddle the Kool Aide because it puts and keeps the politicians they want in office. So they spread the fake science just to sow doubt.

Many other large corporations support those same climate denier politicians, not necessarily because they drank the Kool aide, but because those politicians will also support bills they want passed such as tax breaks and deregulation.

It has been said money is the root of all evil. Certainly, money is at the root of the destruction of this planet through climate change. It is money that motivates the greenhouse gas industry; it is money that motivates the deniers to insure that nothing is done. The price of that Kool aide is the long term survival of the planet.