Wow. Richard Muller, long-time climate skeptic has recanted. He actually took a look at the numbers and did what the rest of science has been doing for years: he freaked the fuck out. The Earth is warming. The effects are happening faster than anyone thought. And, it is us.
The true, biting and bitter irony of the whole thing is that the study was funded by the Koch brothers in an attempt to prove the opposite. Maybe you’ve heard of them, maybe not. A little googling will bring up plenty. Long story short: they have funded major, major campaigns to distort the science and maintain the status quo. Why? Money. They’re big in fossil fuels and other dirty, nasty things.
Which means that they are perfectly ok with poisoning our children and grandchildren. Which brings me to the point of this post: insanity.
The west is still burning. We are tight in the grip of an epic drought with more than half of the counties in the US being declared federal disaster areas. Oklahoma City and many of its suburbs now have mandatory water rationing. It’s been the hottest 12 months since records began in this country . . . and we STILL don’t have a comprehensive plan for doing anything about it.
Obama is: “All of the above.” Romney is: “oil, coal, gas, oil, coal, gas oil,coal, gas.” One approach isn’t moving anywhere near fast enough and the other guarantees that nothing changes.
The piper is banging on the door, with his hand out for payment and these two guys are trying to make sure our children and grandchildren suffer the consequences. Theirs won’t. Their kids will be tucked away safe and sound while the rest of Mrs. Romney’s “you people” struggle and try to survive and make a living on toxic land, breathing toxic air and drinking toxic water.
They’re taking care of their kids. Much of it on our dime.
I ask you; would you put your child in harms way? Would you allow your child to live in filth? Breathe polluted air? Drink dirty, contaminated water? Would you allow these things if you had a reasonable chance of preventing them?
Of course you wouldn’t. No sane person would willingly and knowing allow their children to suffer such things. No sane person would knowingly allow other people’s children to suffer these things either.
And there’s the rub: the definition of sanity. Doctors tell us that one is considered sane if: that person knows right from wrong and can successfully navigate within the culture in which he/she lives.
That’s a pretty broad definition, but as I’ve already stated; no sane person would allow such outrages against their children or knowingly against someone elses children.
Unless there’s money involved. Money, or as Jesus put it; “the love of money” is the great modifier. Of course no one would allow another person’s child to be harmed by their actions-or inaction-but if your boss said something to the effect of “Flush those chemicals down the drain. It’s too expensive to dispose of them properly”, many of us might do it.
So, is it safe to consider that when money is involved, sanity goes out the window? It’s been said that men do a similar thing when a pretty girl walks into the room, so we may be onto something.
But is it right? Is it moral? Is it acceptable?
Let me put it another way: a man owns a large real estate firm and learns about an island paradise where he could easily build a wonderful community and sell those homes for millions of dollars. The local officials aren’t concerned about anything so long as their palms are greased with cash. Everyone wins. Everyone goes home happy.
The catch: people already live there and have for generations. It is their ancestral home. And they have nowhere else to go. The development would basically extinguish their culture.
What do you do?
On one hand, you already have investors willing to pump millions in for a shot at the profits. On the other, you have a perfectly nice, sustainable group of people who don’t know any other life. Those people would either end up working in the development for pennies or be put on a reservation or something else equally detestable.
What do you do?
Most people, certainly seasoned business people, would go with the development even though–and here’s the kicker–it would violate the rights of the people already living there.
That, my friends, constitutes sociopathy. According to the DSM4, sociopathy or antisocial personality disorder, is defined as “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.”
Now, look around you. At work. On the street. In business meetings. On the news. See how many you can identify. How many are in positions of incredible power? How many hold your lives and your children’s lives and their children’s lives, in their hands-even if only potentially?
Scared yet? Look at who’s running the asylum! These people successfully navigate within their community, but their understanding of right and wrong is twisted. If something makes them money, it’s right. Even if it harms innocents. That makes these incredibly powerful people not quite sane according to the criteria I described above.
Now, go look in the mirror. Could you do that? No, right? Good! Now look for ways to make sure no one does it to your kids or their kids. As I said last time, there are many, many groups out there that need your help. 350.org, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the list is endless. Become one of the people who help stop the lunatics from destroying the rest of us.
Don’t sit this one out.