Can Civilization Survive Really Existing Capitalism ?

                 CAPITALISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT


                      LYING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

   There is a controversy, regularly reported in the media. One side consists of the overwhelming majority of scientists, all of the world's national academies of science, the professional science journals, and the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) . They agree that global warming is taking place ; that there is a substantial human component ; that the situation is serious and perhaps dire ; and that very soon, maybe within decades, the world might reach a tipping point where the process will escalate sharply and will be irreversible, with severe social and economic effects. It is rare to find such consensus on complex scientific issues.
   The other side consists of skeptics, including a few respected scientists who caution that much is unknown---which means that things might be as bad as thought, or might be worse.
   Omitted from the contrived debate is a much larger group of skeptics : highly regarded climate scientists who regard the regular reports of the IPCC as much too conservative.  They have repeatedly been proven correct, unfortunately. But they are scarcely part of the public debate, though very prominent in the scientific literature. 
   The Heartland Institute and ALEC are part of a huge campaign by corporate lobbies to sow seeds of doubt about the near-unanimous consensus of scientists that human activities are having a major impact on global warming with possibly ominous implications. The campaign was openly announced and includes the lobbying organizations of the fossil-- fuel industry, the American Chamber of Commerce(the main business lobby) , and others. The efforts of ALEC and the infamous Koch brothers, are, however, a fraction of what is underway. The initiatives are concealed in complex ways but are sometimes partially revealed,for example in a current report by Suzanne Goldenberg in the London Guardian, which finds that "conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120 million. . . to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change," helping to "build a vast network of think tanks (thinking tanks ??) and activist groups working to a single purpose : to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarizing 'wedge issue' for hardcore conservatives." 
   The propaganda campaign has apparently had some effect on US public opinion, which is more skeptical than the global norm. But the effect is not significant enough to satisfy the masters. That is presumably why sectors of the corporate world are launching their attack on the educational system in an effort to counter the dangerous tendency of the public to pay attention to the conclusions of scientific research.
   At the Republican National Committee's winter meeting in 2013, Governor Bobby Jindal warned the leadership "we must stop being the stupid party. . . We must stop insulting the intelligence of the voters." { Grace Wyler, "Bobby Jindal : The GOP Must Stop Being The Stupid Party," Business Insider, January 25, 2013. } ALEC and its corporate backers, in contrast, want the country to be "the stupid nation" --- and for principled reasons. 
   One of the dark-money organizations of billionaires funding climate- change denial is Donors Trust, which is also a major contributor to efforts to deny voting rights to poor Blacks. That makes sense. African-Americans tend to be Democrats, even social democrats, and might even go so far as to pay attention to science, unlike those properly trained to think critically by "balanced" teaching. 
   The major science journals regularly give a sense of how surreal all of this is. Take Science, the major US scientific weekly. In the January 18, 2013, issue it had three news items side by side . One reported that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the US, continuing a long trend. The second reported a new study by the US Global Change Research Program that provided additional evidence for rapid climate change as the result of human activities and discussed likely severe impacts. The third reported the new appointments to chair the committees on science policy chosen by the House of Representatives, where a minority of voters elected a large majority of Republicans thanks to the shredding of the political system. All three of the new chairs deny that humans contribute to climate change, two deny that it is even taking place, and one is a longtime advocate for the fossil fuel industry. The same issue of the journal has a technical article with new evidence that the irreversible tipping point may be ominously close. 
   Another report in Science from January 2013 underscores the need to ensure that we become the stupid nation. The report provides evidence that even slightly warmer temperatures, less of a rise than is currently anticipated in coming years, could start melting permafrost, which in turn could trigger the release of huge amounts of greenhouse gases trapped in ice. Best to keep to "balanced education"---if, that is, we can face the grandchildren whose lives we are busy destroying.