This is a piece about how climate change denial is being funded by the same people who brought us the Harper Government. Every time I see something like this my first thought is, "That's disgusting" and my second is, "I could do that".
For the record, the IPCC (a tremendously conservative body) included in its conclusions that climate scientists are 95% certain climate change is both real and anthropogenic. Of the scientists who contributed to it, 97.1% agreed its anthropogenic. Here's a take on those numbers in the middle of a really good attack on the media for it's fair and equal presentation of ideas. Here is an interesting article on the lay deniers who argue winter is positive proof the anthropogenic argument is wrong and how that should replace, "Hot enough for you?" as the standard culture signifier for an annoying loudmouth.
Still, there seems to be a consensus there is very little we can do as individuals except try to find the best way to survive the coming changes. The people who we need to be at the head of the movement for change are the same people who are funding the attacks against the science demonstrating the need for change. The fight is fix, as Leonard Cohen told us a long time ago. Things are so bad here is Canada, the government sends chaperones to sit with Canadian scientists at press conferences to ensure they stay "on message".
Since you don't need an advanced degree in climate science to attack it and anyone who wants to take a crack at "debunking" climate science already has the winning combination of an audience who want to be convinced and backers with deep pockets I might be approaching this issue completely backwards. The way I see it, I have two separate but related problems. I need to make money. That's problem number one. It's not as important as problem number two but it is far more immediate. Problem two is, of course, the fact we might have already locked in a climate change that will make the Earth uninhabitable.
This piece was published almost two years ago and it's a really interesting take on the new world order and our reactions to it. After connecting the current crop of apocalypse fanboys (including me, I suppose) to the people who were reacting similarly to the Mayan prophecy of 2012 (which I didn't credit for a second) or Y2K (which I also completely ignored), the author throws the king-bastard of all bummers on the unsuspecting reader:
"Imagine a future in which all the trends I've just sketched out [increasingly frequent disasters and a less and less assistance from the government and the community] just keeps getting worse, a tunnel growing slowly darker without any light at the far end - not even the lamp of an oncoming train. More to the point, imagine that this is your future; that you, personally, will have to meet ever-increasing costs with an income that has less purchasing power each year; that you will spend each year you still have left as an employee hoping that it won't be your job's turn to go away forever, until that finally happens; that you will have to figure out how to cope as health care and dozens of other basic good and services stop being available at a price you can afford, or at any price at all; that you will spend the rest of your life in the conditions I've just sketched out, and you know as you die that the challenges waiting for your grandchildren will be quite a bit worse than the ones you faced."
I can't deny I have a strange fascination with this potential apocalypse I would have probably scorned two years ago. The extent I'm willing to believe the potential for global catastrophe seems directly correlated to the mess in my personal life. I don't know if that makes me as petty is it sounds. It probably does.
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