Compilation: The war on science and the global climate EMERGENCY, or; The betrayal of life by fossil fuel industry-influenced and funded deception networks, puppets, ideologues to muzzle, discredit, intimidate experts, lie to the public and deny physics

“The first law of humanity is not to kill your children.” ~ Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, climate scientist, from a speech at the COP 18 Doha U.N. Climate Conference 2012

This is a compilation in progress about the calculated mass betrayal perpetrated by fossil fuel industry-influenced / funded deception networks and loyal puppets / ideologues (like most elected U.S. Republicans, and Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper) to:

muzzle, censor, intimidate, demonize scientists;

lie about and discredit the near-unanimous consensus of international science academies / published, peer-reviewed experts (not to mention the World Bank, International Energy Agency, Price Waterhouse Cooper) that global heating and climate disruption are clear, present, human-caused realities and dire threats to our very existence.

Reality

Difficult as it is to communicate, absorb and process, let alone accept, and as shrill / alarmist as it may sound…

Our shared atmosphere is on an accelerating course to reach a state of potentially unsurvivable global climate extremes during the lives of today’s children and teens. (Compilation: +4 °C by 2060s or sooner catastrophic / incompatible with organized civilization.)

Clear, present impacts ALREADY displace millions / KILL hundreds of thousands each year, and compromise the lives of billions RIGHT NOW.

No less than the fate of all generations of all peoples and most species hangs in the balance TODAY. And only emergency international action at emergency (world war-time) speed FAST *may be* proportional enough to confront the scale, scope and urgency of what is ALREADY the greatest crime against humanity, most life and most future life EVER. (Compilation: Betrayal of Life.)

Necessary action

Without a massive, coordinated, worldwide mobilization to:

cool the planet / stop arctic sea ice melt — the air conditioner of the northern hemisphere and a major global weather regulator that has lost 80% of its volume, almost 50% of it’s long-term (1979 – 2000) average extent since 1979, and rendered the jet stream much slower, wavier, weaker (watch video) / prone to cause more extreme and prolonged weather events (storms, droughts, wildfires, floods), which in turn threaten food / agriculture, fresh water supply, the security / stability of nations — and somehow encourage it to re-freeze before the escape of massive amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas, methane, from frozen permafrost in northern Canada / Siberia / under water ocean shelves becomes an unstoppable blow torch accelerator of heat feedback (See: Compilation: Methane Time Bomb EMERGENCY);

halt / reverse the rapid acidification and heat absorption of our one, all connected ocean

to prevent the growth of oxygen depleted dead-zones, the decimation of coral reefs (home to 25% of all marine species), and the mass die-off of phytoplankton, the base source of food and oxygen that all other life relies on / requires in order to exist, and which has declined by 40% in the northern hemisphere since 1950 (See: Compilation: Phytoplankton, and Compilation: Ocean Acidification);

decarbonize / transform our methods of energy / agriculture / food production and transportation (See: Compilation: Food / Agriculture and Clmate Emergency);

restore ecosystems and their key components like glaciers and other precious fresh water sources, forests, soil, peat lands, and arrest and turn back the steady creep of desertification that is in progress RIGHT NOW over two thirds of all land on the planet;

stem the current, human-caused — and sixth ‘great’ — mass extinction, estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, and save / protect / rejuvenate / maximize biodiversity;

somehow sequester (remove) huge amounts of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide) from our now over moist, steroidal, super-heated and energy inbalanced atmosphere to achieve a cycle of net negative emissions, which is the ONLY WAY to enable an eventual return to the lower, more stable concentrations that made it possible for agriculture, civilization, and all of us, to ‘flourish’;

within mere decades, the epic forces that have been set in motion — and that deniers conspire to hasten and worsen(!) — are predicted to result in intolerable, if not uninhabitable, chaos and ruin EVERYWHERE.

Betrayal

Far beyond the horrors inflicted by the Nazis, enslavers, colonialists, executors of apartheids, religious, ideological or other persecutions, or any past holocausts, anti-science deniers, delayers, deceivers, discreditors, muzzlers, intimidators, enablers, flat-out, bald-faced liars, and the sordid minds and money behind this disinformation, whether corporate, government, politician or otherwise, should be thought of as the purest affront to all that sustains us, our loved ones and those yet to inhale their first breath — puppies, kittens and bunnies included, if that’s any help.

In a sane world, these dealers of snake oil would be incarcerated for their active engagement in the most heinous of fraud against the public in order to maximize the obscene profit of a multi-government subsidized death and devastation industry that knows no borders or boundaries, displaces and kills millions every year, and may already have ensured the unimaginable suffering and blood of BILLIONS.

Unless regressive, obstructive, greed and ideology-motivated anti-science censorship and treachery becomes fast-exposed and perceived by the general populace as the reckless, pathological, abhorrent, immoral, ecocidal, suicidal, genocidal scourge and intergenerational injustice that it is, what *may* still be a brief window of opportunity to attempt to prevent runaway catastrophe before irreversible tipping points are triggered will soon close for all relevant time, and the unthinkable will become unavoidable and assured.

Evil?

In the 1987 movie, Broadcast News, the jealous, not so suave Albert Brooks character theorizes about what the Devil would be like if he was around:

“He will be attractive! He’ll be nice and helpful. He’ll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation. He’ll never do an evil thing! He’ll never deliberately hurt a living thing… he will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny little bit. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny little bit. And he’ll talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he’ll get all the great women.”

As large-brained mammals driven by the base desires of pleasure, comfort and immediate survival, I tend to think of concepts like morality, altruism or the dualities of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as constructs that we have created to distinguish ourselves from other animals — explainable by evolutionary biology / psychology, circumstance, belief, social conditioning, or in terms of mental health or the lack thereof.

But given all that’s at stake RIGHT NOW, if ‘evil’ does exist, the intentional delivery of provable falsehood as fact for selfish, personal, short-term gain to obscure the truth and need for EMERGENCY action at EMERGENCY speed to confront the climate crisis FAST might be its ultimate incarnation.

Watch the videos in the playlist above for an overview. Further info in the resources below.

Also see: Compilation: Psychology of climate crisis denial, inaction, immobilization.