Carbon that took hundreds of millions of years to form in the earth has been released into our atmosphere in the geological equivalent of an instant. The emissions of our civilization have grown (now exploded) over just this past 200 years, to now exceed 27 billion tons of carbon dioxide, annually. To pretend this isn't having any effect on the 12-mile thin atmosphere which sustains life on earth is to throw all logic and common sense to the wind. It is to succumb to belief in religious superstitions and political fairy tales- about a world where actions have no consequences- where carbon dioxide and methane, colorless, odorless gases- the effluence of industrial and population growth, can be waved off with a smirk of uninformed arrogance.
In these last few years the Capitalists have managed to create of the scientific consensus on climate change a political debate in America- and have won it! How could they do it? Perhaps it should evoke no surprise at all- big business and its political allies mobilized a concerted, well-funded effort to distort climate science. Multinational corporations, policy institutes, and think tanks began skillfully planting dubious seeds of doubt, using professional deniers, hired outlying scientists, and an array of so-called skeptical bloggers, all cherry picking the data, to provide ammunition needed to create climate confusion for a public not wanting to face the truth anyway.
And the up-side to this debate victory? Big Energy gets to keep America addicted to carbon-based fuels indefinitely, and the shareholders get to enjoy the continued flow of profits. The monetary scale of what is at stake is enormous- America may have many trillions of dollars' worth of carbon reserves left in the ground- coal, gas, and oil (as it stands, to fully utilize the proven global carbon reserves left in the ground, we commit ourselves to an apocalyptic climate catastrophe).
All the while the effects of Global Warming continue- these last years have seen us enter a new and strange set of weather patterns. The dire warnings from climate scientists from as far as thirty years back are coming true, one after another- and faster than the computer models had predicted. Data shows 37 straight years of above-average temperatures, worldwide. In 2012 our living earth is running a fever, with symptoms which include extra violent tornadoes, in size and frequency previously unheard of- massive hurricanes- and chronic, severe flooding in some areas- with oppressive spreading heat- and desertification over other areas.
It seems no use to plead with the larger society- this majority which refuses to pay attention to the 97% of published peer-reviewed PhDs - the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists who link the huge spike in greenhouse gases with a much warmer, stormier atmosphere. Of what good is our so-called representative democracy if it has brought us to this?
Kalinzskii
Never pluralize with the apostrophe.
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