Norwary Snow
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the snowy, strike that, blizzard bound island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this very windy, white out condition kind of day here on the Hyannis/Hyannis Port Waterfront(s). Looking out my office window, 8:07 a.m. eastern, South Street is not visible, nor are the big boats going over to Nantucket. We are in an all out blizzard once again, with much of Massachusetts being hammered by this winter hurricane, bringing up to 24 inches in some spots…
100 years from now the grand topic of discussion will be, “…what was wrong with the human race in the early part of the 21st Century? Spewing all of that Carbon Dioxide and Methane into the atmosphere as if it were and open sewer; did they not have qualified scientists to WARN them of the oncoming train wreck that IS GLOBAL WARMING?”
What did they ‘think’ would happen?
I suppose the old adage is true, one cannot reason with a crazy person. The big losers (at the moment), in this race to the bottom, with extinction being the grand prize, are the many wild and diverse animals we love so much on planet earth. Such as the Monarch Butterfly, who, like the Star Fish in the Pacific Ocean, are slowly going the way of the Dodo bird.
These majestic and beautiful animals, like the Polar Bear, are dying because of man’s folly, paying the ultimate price for our stupidity and GREED. Our willful ignorance and pathetic apathy, stating, “…oh, no Bluto, don’t make US stand up to these lunatic industrialists! We can’t fight, we obviously cannot think for ourselves or really do anything about this coming cataclysm because we are afraid of the mean ‘ole oil and gas lobby in Washington D.C., they are just too powerful!” (credit John Belushi from the iconic film, “Animal House”, circa 1978).
On “Real Time, with Bill Maher”, (only on HBO, LIVE; 10 p.m. eastern), Bill had as his first guest the popular film maker Robert Kenner, whose new film coming out in March, “Merchants of Doubt”, sheds some LIGHT on all of the very naughty activities many ‘upstanding’ corporations have really done over the decades; mostly to innocent animals, plants, water, air, soil and most of all people..
‘“Merchants of Doubt” was the most talked about climate change books in recent years, for reasons to easy understand: it tells the controversial story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists (bought by Koch Industries!), and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics & industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. The same individuals who claim the science of global warming is “not settled” have also denied the truth about studies listing smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFC’s to the ozone hole. “Doubt is our product”, wrote one tobacco executive. “These “experts” provided it.”
Is it sane to keep doing what WE have been doing, say, for the past forty years with the result culminating in a global climate cataclysm?
The good folks at Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and a myriad of other large polluters think so!
For they are making money hand over fist and to them, the planet’s fate is really none their concern, especially with all of that “doubt” out there! Theirs is simply the bottom line, lo, the bottom line for the sacred “investors” during another short sighted fiscal quarter. To hell with future generations!
Have a nice Sunday folks!
PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
