Remember when it became clear that the tobacco industry had pooled their money to buy “scientists” to skew their data in order to confuse and mislead the American People and their policymakers about the real dangers of smoking? Well that day has now come for the fossil industries (coal, oil and auto) represented by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) in draft documents that are proof positive that the “scientists” on their payroll knew as early as 1995 that human induced global warming was real, that it was happening and that the science behind it was irrefutable and they said so. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=3&hpw
That inconvenient and unprofitable information was of course suppressed by maleficent corporate entities concerned about their private harvest in the next few quarters and not about the fruits for all mankind in the next quarter century or quarter millennium.
In the draft documents that the auto industry was ironically forced to reveal during the discovery process of its law suit to stop California regulations to limit greenhouse emissions the GCC “scientists” stated the following:
“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”
That inconvenient truth was removed the final version of the document as the GCC used their the might of their money and high paid public relations firms to fight the Kyoto Protocol and any curbs on emissions.
Today we are in the Know. Everyone but the GOPsters, the GOPropagandists, their corporate sponsors and their mislead anti-science and anti-intellectual minions (i.e. the 20% of American dead-enders) recognize the reality that we face as a planet. But we’ve lost more than a decade while the greedy profiteers like ExxonMobil have harvested from us handsomely while mortgaging our children’s future.
As a people, it’s time for us to have civil and perhaps even criminal recourse against individuals and groups like the fossil industries that are found to have fomented ignorance and misinformation to confuse and delay allowing them to privatize the profits while socializing the associated costs.
And as soon as Al Franken is seated as the 60th U.S. Senator providing a filibuster proof majority it’s time for the party of “Know” to push the Party of “No” aside, put teeth back into measures to ensure corporate responsibility and move us beyond the age of the fossil industries to a sustainable and renewable future.
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