Three ‘crises’ helped shape climate change denials

ACHTUNG: The following is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” — Sir Isaac Newton’s third law.

Three huge developments in the decade between 1998 and 2008 had significant bearing on the continuing denial of climate change assertions.

Other than willful ignorance and having a lot of investments in the fossil fuel industry (i.e. “follow the money”), the Y2K debacle, the Iraq war’s “weapons of mass destruction,” and the economic crash that prompted the Great Recession paved the way for inaction on what most scientists say is the greatest threat to our species.

It was difficult in the late 1990s to avoid hearing about local officials preparing for the “millennium bug,” or the notion that the calendar turning from 1999 to 2000 would cause economic and public safety chaos.

I remember Hastings Fire Chief Roger Caris reporting extensively twice a month to the Hastings City Council on contingency plans and steps being taken to make all city equipment Y2K compliant. Many local officials took seriously dire warnings about massive power outages and computer issues that we were told would occur when the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 2000.

It all turned out to be something akin to an April Fool joke, but nobody was laughing. They were, however, relieved to know nothing bad happened. But as some observers pointed out, the only people who came out ahead in the millennium bug scare were those who manufactured and sold software they said would make everybody Y2K complaint.

The joke was on us, we collectively had egg on our faces. And we had wasted money.

Not long afterward came the most traumatic day in my lifetime, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After the shock, many of us regarded this as an act of war and decided we were going to get even.

The Bush Doctrine (of George W.) was announced as anyone who harbored terrorists would be viewed as the enemy (“You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists”). A little more than a year later, the President and his Necon circle decided we should invade Iraq because it had or was building weapons of mass destruction.

Bush received a lot of emotional support, most publicly through Country and Western singers Clint Black and Toby Keith, who helped whip patriotism into a frenzy of hubris.

Black: “Iraq, I roll. I rack ‘em up and roll… If they don’t want to show us their weapons, we might have to show ‘em ours.”

Keith: “And you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A. ‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass. It’s the American way.”

It wasn’t until years later that we learned the weapons of mass destruction were about as true as the need for Y2K compliance.

Porgy: “I see… they lied to us.”

Mudhead: “Who’s they?”

Porgy: “You know — them!”

— From the Firesign Theatre, “Don’t Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers.”

Unfortunately, more than 4,000 American soldiers and God only knows how many Iraqis died as a result.

Then came the collapse of the stock market and the beginning of the Great Recession, in which the guilty companies deemed to big to fail were bailed out by the government. Many American people had come to believe we could do just about anything we want in the free market arena without consequences.

As free market guru and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said in post-crash congressional hearings in October 2008, according to Time Magazine, “The maestro admitted in an October congressional hearing that he had ‘made a mistake in presuming’ that financial firms could regulate themselves.”

Since then too many people now believe we’re seeing and hearing the same phony song and dance from scientists who insist climate change is a real issue and it’s man made. But many of the deniers, particularly politicians, are in bed with the fossil fuel industry (aka Big Oil) and have a stake in keeping things just the way they are.

“Follow the money.”