It is a remarkable feat of successful propaganda that educated Americans, living in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, trail behind most other populations in the world in their belief in the scientific evidence of the dangers of global warming. What prompted me to look up some very interesting Pew Research Center polls on the matter, which I will address, was the number of people I have spoken with who seem angry or perturbed that the Obama Administration has yet to approve the construction of the Keystone Pipeline. These were not the type of people who follow environmental issues, or energy issues in general; many were predictably Obama bashers, whom, as the President once said, “If I say fish live in the sea, they’d say, no they don’t.” But what I find most disturbing is the overall American public’s lack of concern or understanding of the grave consequences of our continued use of fossil fuels and the devastating impact it is having on our climate.
During his State of the Union address, President Obama made it a point to say that climate change is real, regardless of the deniers, and that it is a scientific fact. If the President were speaking to a group of Kentucky poisonous snake handlers, or a third world country of voodoo practitioners, the necessity of clarifying the fact that global warming is real and mostly caused by mankind’s unprecedented use of fossil fuels, it would be understandable. In our country though, the business class, aided by right-wing media pundits, and “fair and balanced” other generic shit news peddlers, have succeeded in perpetuating the myth that man-made global warming is some type of controversial theory in which the jury is still out on. The business elite and policy planners of the government know this to be a lie, but short term profit always trumps long term consequences among corporate leaders, and the policy planners are of course, corporate sponsored. So they put out the propaganda that allows their current profit models to continue on course as they are, and to hell with the future inhabitants of the planet.
The Pew Research Center polls, which I looked up, paint a pretty clear and pretty pathetic picture of the success of this propaganda campaign. It shows that among most publics of the world, when asked whether or not they think climate change is a serious threat to their country, a fewer percentage of Americans believed it was than any of the other groups surveyed. Americans citing climate change as a major threat was 40 percent; all other groups were above 50 percent except for the Middle East, who still ranked above us at 42 percent. The polls break down the belief system within the U.S. population as well, and not surprisingly, it shows that the more conservative an American is, or republican or tea bagger, the more likely they are to not attribute climate change to human activity. Of course, this is the most crucial point of the propaganda system, because as long as Americans mistakenly believe that there is “debate” about the cause, then action and policy change become difficult or impossible, and things remain the same. Copy and paste this link for the Pew polls: http://www.pewresearch.org/key-data-points/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/
The confusion among Americans, who should theoretically be better educated than their Middle East counterparts, appears to be the belief that there is debate among scientists, that the cause of climate change is still some controversial theory that has yet to be proven or agreed upon. I saw the joke of a congresswoman from Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn, argue on “Meet the Press” last week that there was not agreement among scientist of the causes. It’s hard to know if she is just an idiot, or a liar, it could be either one. Tea baggers who are not idiots are liars, and some of the idiots are also liars, so it’s hard to be sure with her. Ass-wipe Sean Hannity, of the Fox Propaganda Network, is another one that is hard to tell if he is lying or just a dumb-ass, or both. When we were recently going through a bitter cold front in New York City, he of course observed that the freezing weather outside his studio meant that global warming was a “hoax.” His word. I was just trying to figure out if him saying that as the truth was a hoax or not. Like I said, the business elite know the truth, but it goes against their goals of profit over people, so they have jack-asses like Hannity preach misinformation, and scumbags like Congresswoman Blackburn to make sure policy change doesn’t happen.
As I was cursing at the tv during last week’s “Meet the Press” episode as Blackburn was making her ignorant/lying statements, David Greggor also pointed out to her that there is consensus in the scientific community that today’s global warming is impacted by mankind activity. As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, that consensus in the scientific community is 97 percent at least, and if the credibility of the other 3 percent were to be scrutinized, my guess is most of them are barely what we’d call scientist. I’ve always joked that these “scientists” that deny climate change are probably undergraduates from Jerry Falwell University or some other religious school, the kind that still deny the existence of evolution and believe that world is only 6000 years old, and that dinosaurs walked around with Adam and Eve. And there are those “scientists” and “biologists” who believe this. But to cite these anomalies of idiots as “debate” in the scientific community is a stretch by any imagination. And it is exactly this stretch of imagination that has our population so ignorant or confused on the realty of our race to ruin the planet.
In fact, the debate among scientist now is about how quickly the earth will continue to warm, and how disastrous the effects of the warming will be. As of right now, it appears that scientists have been too optimistic about the time frame and consequences. Evidence so far suggests that global warming is happening quicker than was first predicted, and having more devastating consequences, sooner, than was predicted a couple of decades ago.
Secretary of State, John Kerry, made headlines this past week in a speech in Indonesia in which he compared the danger of climate change to weapons of mass destruction. He supposedly has a stellar record as an environmentalist politician, but I only heard that in the media and haven’t had time to examine his actual record, but let’s assume he is. The State Department has to weigh in the most on the Keystone Pipeline, as it crosses our international border with Canada, and President Obama is waiting, among all of the other input of public commentary due in the next month, on Mr. Kerry’s recommendation before approving or not approving the pipeline. Is Mr. Kerry’s strong words on global warming, and the media’s trumpeting of him as a champion of the environment, merely a ruse to give credibility to the approval of the pipeline, should Obama approve it? Or is it a hint to Big Oil to not get their hopes up, should Obama not approve it?
I’d like to think it’s the Obama Administration’s way of giving an early warning to Big Oil and all the big profit business that goes along with it that he is leaning towards not allowing the Keystone Pipeline to be built. But given Mr. Obama’s frequent bragging about America’s increased domestic oil production since he took office (which is accurate) and his optimism that thanks to natural gas, America will be energy independent for the next century, I have reason for doubt. This new found celebration about our future energy independence – “independence” being misunderstood by the public’s conventional thinking of what that means, as oil and the U.S. will remain part of the global market and we will still be in the Middle East and elsewhere digging for more – seems to be based almost entirely on our current system of fossil fuel use, and our ability to extract more. Very little is spoken about achieving this abundant century of energy through transitioning to alternative sources of energy. Aside from talking about better fuel standards, most all of this optimism cites America’s natural gas and fracking to extract it, continued coal use, and better drilling techniques. The tar sands of Canada, where the most dirty and dangerous form of crude oil lies, is one such example of our so called improved extraction techniques. The main purpose of the Keystone Pipeline is to transport this dirty fuel, although it will transport some other sources of crude.
So I get calls or emails or Facebook posts from my political opponents yelling for the pipeline. It’s been a republican mantra and answer to not passing a jobs bill, to get Obama to approve the Keystone Pipeline. They’ve even tried to extort it from the President over the debt ceiling. “Drill, baby, drill!” was a Sarah Palin rallying cry during her failed V.P. run, though I suspect half of the one toothed rednecks and snake handlers in her crowd were more moved by a woman of her looks saying “drill, baby, drill!” than they were by actual thoughts on energy production. The problem, in these mind numbing nit-wit’s mind, is that we just need to drill more. Scrape the tar sands, drill baby drill. This faulty belief is understandable, if they first believe that there is no global warming taking place because of our use of fossil fuel.
There are some legitimate arguments about the safety of transporting crude oil through pipelines as opposed to transportation by rail. Recently, the increases use of our rail system to transport oil and other fuel has led to a spike and new record of accidents that have resulted in devastating explosions and leaks of dangerous material in various communities in our country. However, pipelines also break, and have led to environmental disasters as well. The bottom line, and fundamental question, is if we want to invest and sacrifice more to exploit the ever harder to extract fossil fuels such as the oil in the tar sands of Canada, or if we will pull our collective head out of our asses and realize that man-made global warming is real, is a genuine threat to our survival on the planet, and that we must immediately make drastic changes to the way we will manage our energy in the future. Bragging about a century of energy independence because we have figured out how to extract more dirty fossil fuels is a recipe for environmental disaster, which is already happening. Building this pipeline will not bring down the price of gas that people pay at the pump for gas. It will raise the profits of the Big Oil, Big Business, and the Big Banks that service them. It will also postpone and suck resources away from making the necessary transition to alternative fuels. This will in turn ruin the planet, and imperil the chance for humankind’s survival in the future. And as long as the successful spreading of lies and misinformation continue, it appears we are running, not walking, down this path. And in the end, it will matter little who was lying to deny climate change and it’s causes, and who was just a moron and tool of the liars. What matters now is that people realize the undeniable truth about global warming and it’s causes and consequences.
This is a link to a most excellent video report from the online version of “The Nation” and I highly recommend you take the time to watch it. It is extremely informative, and engaging to watch, and I strongly urge everyone watch it, regardless of what side of the fence you are on at the moment on climate change and energy production:
http://www.thenation.com/video/157441/peak-oil-and-changing-climate
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