The human race has been having the debate about climate change for decades and I’ve never heard or read a definitive answer to the question most commonly posed to its deniers — why would scientists lie?
According to NASA, 97 percent of climate scientists on the planet Earth believe that climate warming trends are due to the activity of human beings. Now, I’m no scientist but it seems to me much more likely that they’re on to something, rather than nearly 100 percent of climate scientists getting together in secret to hatch some nefarious plot to scam the people of Earth.
What could they possibly gain from doing so? If you ask me, not much.
I’ll tell you who stands to gain from denying the fact that it’s real — polluters.
Oil and gas companies. Politicians. Right-wing cable news networks.
I don’t know much, but one thing I do know is that liars tend to lie because they have something to gain from lying.
And the deniers of climate change are liars. They lie because they’ve set us on a path of flooding the Earth and they’re the one’s with the flood insurance.
They’re selling us out for cold hard cash.
The evidence for the existence of climate change is undeniable. It can be viewed by the naked eye.
Do me a favor and get on YouTube (I know what you’re thinking, “homework, really? What is this a school?”) and search for a recent episode of HBO’s series “Vice” that tackled this topic. Use the search term “Vice on Greenland Ice Sheet Collapse.”
Gaze in horror as you see the sheer enormity of the amount of ice that is breaking off of Greenland and entering our oceans where it will melt and cause sea levels to rise.
Then go to Google News (“Seriously? More homework? It’s about to be finals time, dude.”) and just search the term “East Antarctica.” Then you’ll read that certain portions of the Antarctic are now more at risk of melting to a degree that could cause sea levels to rise 10 feet for the next 10,000 years.
And pardon the pun; this is just the tip of the climate change horror iceberg.
What will it take to get people to wake up to the fact that their home is in danger?
We all live here and the effects could be felt for generations. That is, you children or their children or their children could someday see a San Francisco that is underwater.
And for what?
To persist in the plundering of the sea and land for oil? To continue driving gas-powered automobiles? Granted, electric cars are not yet a perfect solution as the production of electricity still relies on substances such as gas and coal.
But if we got off our lazy duffs and worked as hard as we did to create the automobile in the first place to harness the potentially endless energy of the sun, wouldn’t we all be better off?
But who stands in our way?
Oil and gas companies. Politicians.
Right-wing cable news networks.
Pillagers and rapists of the Earth. Liars. Blowhards.
The same people who at one point in history would have killed other humans for suggesting that the Earth wasn’t flat.
A vast majority of the human species is content with allowing the destroyers of the planet carte blanche to rush it to its grave.
If you find yourself being one of those who denies climate change is anything but the cold hard reality of life in the year of our lord, 2014 — take a moment to ask yourself but one simple question: Am I lying to myself?
