There are some subjects that cry out for satire, none more than the dark and disturbing issue of global warming. The denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.
Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. "They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. "Both figured, sow enough dou
bt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That's had a huge impact on both the public and Congress."
In times like this, satire can be the only rational response. Once again, one of the best wordsmiths in the country, Mark Morford, deftly nails it.
Thank God global warming is a hoax - by Mark Morford, SFGate columnist - August 18, 2010
I mean, right? You know? Because gosh Jesus in angry apocalyptic heaven, wouldn't it be just terrible if it were all true?
Wouldn't it be horrible if all this stunning, insanely mounting, irrefutable evidence -- death, floods, fires, heat waves, the worst this and the most violent that in 1,000 years -- were some sort of surefire, cumulative sign that we have, if not directly caused, then wildly accelerated and amplified the imminent implosion of this planet?
But we didn't! And we haven't! And we aren't! I mean, whew.
I am delighted to remember that hardcore science has lied, misguided, misnomered and whatever else weird science does to confuse the world about the real impact humanity has had on global ecosystems. All those thousands of highly trained scientists educated at the finest universities, learning the most difficult and fraught information of our age, all in universal agreement that humankind's actions directly affect climate change, and they are all totally full of it because they are clearly in cahoots with Nazi Liberal Jesus, the solar panel manufacturers and the hippies who want me to compost my KFC Double Down wrapper.
I am delighted to be reassured by the fringe right wing that the piles of dead bodies, millions of lost homes, and even the very sun itself are part of a vast conspiracy, a plot to form an evil one-world government, a lefty liberal charade even in places that don't understand or care what the hell a liberal is. See? Do you understand how powerful the lie? Amazing.
Because otherwise, wow, what sort of hell is this? Pakistan, Russia, China, Greenland, Niger and on and on it goes. Unprecedented heat waves, scorched crops, giant icebergs, savage droughts, dire emergencies, thousands dead here and 10,000 more over there and nothing like these events in the history of the world, ever.
Even the U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, is in on it, coming back from Pakistan stunned and shaken by the epic flooding he witnessed there. "The magnitude of the problem; the world has never seen such a disaster. It's much beyond anybody's imagination," he said, putting out the urgent call for more international aid. I mean, sure global warming is happening -- even some of the more ignorant climate change deniers have had to reverse course on that -- but humanity had nothing to do with it, OK? We don't need to change our behavior one iota. If God wants another Ice Age or whatever, who are we to argue?
Heathen book-learners and their ridiculous studies, that's who! Scientists are saying that all these severe weather patterns fit in exactly with what they've been predicting all along. Not only that, but they say it's increasingly likely that we've waited too long to change our behaviors, cut emissions, reduce consumption and other such liberal gibberish, and now it might be too late to do anything about it. Increasingly extreme, violent weather will now be the norm, and the devastation, disease and death will only increase.
Good news! If I blink a few times while clicking the mouse, it all goes away. Hey look, Lindsay Lohan's mom is all up in it! Snooki is so wasted! All is as it should be. Thank you, Interweb.
But dammit, their godless eco-agenda just won't stop. 2010, they say, is not being very nice, is setting all sorts of unpleasant records. Already, the most national extreme heat records in a single year (17). Already, the hottest half-year on record in planetary history. Already, the five warmest months in tropical Atlantic history, possibly resulting in more hurricanes. Already, millions of people sensing, deep down, that Something Is Very Wrong Indeed. Good thing their calmly intuitive souls are full of crap.
I mean, please. Isn't it like this every year? Always with the floods and fires. Always with the hurricanes, earthquakes and numbing body counts. Is this year, this decade really that different? I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I just turned up this Glenn Beck podcast. Here is your big lesson: Do not listen to people who actually know things. Only listen to people who react, negatively and whiningly, to people who actually know things. It's the American way.
Have you seen the photos from the Gulf of Mexico, all shiny and clear thanks to toxic chemical dispersants, the miracle of ocean currents and armies of PR people who smell like hate? What happened to all the oil? It's all gone, even though it's really not! Absorbed into the planetary bloodstream like magic! Even the president is there, splashing around in waters that, not a month ago, had hundreds of million of gallons of crude oil and chemicals floating in it.
Just more proof that God's favorite creatures can cause no lasting harm. We're innocent as pie. And guns. And Corexit 9500. I'm dumping some used motor oil into this city sewer right now, in celebration.
I just read the flooding in Pakistan has already caused more devastation than the 2004 tsunami in Asia, worse than the Haiti earthquake. One quarter of the country is underwater. They say Pakistan also just broke a record for the single highest temperature ever recorded on the Asian continent, at 128 degrees (16 other nations also met or broke heat records this year, too). That record was set in a city. Where people live. But not for very much longer, because they do not have giant air conditioners and pallets of Fiji water from Costco like we do, so they probably won't survive.
Yes, it's tragic. It's unprecedented. It's never happened like this before. Heck, even here in the eco-terrorist homeland of San Francisco, they say the change in ocean temperatures will soon mean Fog City will be entirely fog bound, edge to edge, nearly year round. But I repeat: It's not our fault. Seven billion rapacious, industrialized bipeds have the impact of a feather. All this destruction and death? It's just God's will -- except for those places that don't believe in a Christian God. Serves them right, doesn't it?
By the way, there's an obvious solution to many of these horrors -- to the Russian heat waves, the violent droughts in Niger, the dead bodies floating in Pakistan, the floods in China: Do not go there. Do not go to these terrible, hot, messy places. It's so easy!
I mean, so what if giant icebergs four times the size of Manhattan are suddenly breaking off in Greenland? That's happening way, way up there. I'm overconsuming energy and blocking out inconvenient truths way, way down here. There is no cause/effect, no connection whatsoever, never mind that dark, nagging sense of self-wrought doom, deep in my bones. I know that's just a liberal lie, an implant, completely futile -- just like those failed climate talks in Copenhagen, and the soon-to-be-failed ones coming up shortly in Mexico. I mean, whew.
