A dark ideology is driving those who deny climate change

[Elmore Furth]

Last winter with all of the severe snowstorms all ove the world, climate scientists noted and predicted a record rise in global temperatures. The climate change deniers at that time flooded the newspaper columns and blogs with skepticism about warming trends based on local weather. Right-wing political voices in the media backed by corporations and conservative foundations, have managed to obscure the truth on issues that range from the dangers of smoking to global warming. Climate scientist predicted the increased storm intensity that is now playing out world-wide. The nonsense and confusion that the climate change deniers spread slows down efforts to address these problems before they reach crisis proportions.

Life can be hard in Moscow. The Russian capital is sweltering in temperatures that reached a record 37.7C last week. Vast stretches of peat bog surrounding the city have dried out and caught fire covering Moscow with choking smog. The changing of the horse guard in Cathedral Square was cancelled as sentries wilted in traditional woollen uniforms. Elsewhere, more than 2,000 Russians – many drunk – drowned trying to cool off in lakes and rivers and at least 10 million hectares of crops have been ruined. States of emergency have been declared in 23 regions.

Nor is Russia alone. New York has baked in a thick tropical heat and humidity that is gripping eastern America. Public cooling centres have been set up while black-outs are common. In the Arctic, sea ice coverage continues to dwindle while a report last week revealed that levels of phytoplankton – tiny marine plants that are the foundation of the oceans' food chain – are plummeting, victims of global warming.

Our world is starting to sizzle as rising levels of greenhouse gases trap more and more of the sun's heat in the lower atmosphere – a point that was confirmed on Wednesday when the Met Office reported that sensors from around the world were showing that 2010 would be the hottest, or just possibly the second hottest year on record.


A dark ideology is driving those who deny climate change

[jaksavage]

1. It's only just begun

our future is fried.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

2. K&R

[drm604]

3. A bunch of narrow minded assholes are sowing doubt and hindering progress on crucial problems.

These people are criminals, at least morally if not legally.

[MH1]

4. Yes but there is an even darker reason that makes the deniers more effective -

and that is that the truth is too difficult for most people to face.

That truth being that the root cause of climate change (and resource depletion, which even fewer people seem to have caught on to) is overpopulation.

[RevStPatrick]

5. It's a dark ideology, all right!

And it's darker than we may think. On the surface, it simply looks like the desire of corporations to not spend money following regulations. It looks like they just want to do whatever they want to do in the name of profit, and that they are too short-sighted to care about the results of their actions.

It's worse than that. Much worse. They are purposely killing the world. They know full well that we are in the midst of one of the fastest die-offs in the earth's history, and they are purposely pushing it along. These people were born and raised with the ideology that the world was made for humans to exploit, and they are going to prove once and for all that we own the place. But it is not simply that they think that humans can "control nature," they actively hate nature, because it reminds them of their basest desires. And in these people, greed is their basest desire. Their internal unresolved contradictions are what drive this behavior. Deep down inside, they hate themselves for being greedy, and take it out on the rest of the planet by trying to control it. The more they try to control it, the more out of control it gets. Does this make sense?

The best thing for the rest of us to do is ignore them. We need to behave as if they don't have any control over anything (which they really don't even though they may have us think they do), and the rest of us just need to do the right thing. These people need to be marginalized and put into a box where they can be laughed at and then ignored. The rest of us can then go on living on a planet with finite resources, along with everything else. We don't have to try to control everything, and we don't have to "exploit" everyone and everything in order to live a good life. But each of needs to start behaving as if we each has the power to destroy or to save the world with our actions. Which we do.

[kestrel91316]

6. IMHO they think that if they destroy the world, then Jesus will come

and reward them.

[RevStPatrick]

8. Yes, that is certainly a factor.

But it ain't just the Jesus people. It's every salvationist religion. It's the Buddhists and the Muslims and the Hindus and the Jews and the Bahaiist and the Jainists and the...

They all think that they will be saved. They won't. And that possibility drives them all nuts. Just the smallest little doubt drives them nuts. And as a response, they seek MORE control. It is not only "my god is right and yours is wrong," it is also "what if MY god is wrong?"

But that's not the only factor. At the top, the Koch brothers, for example, don't care about the Jesus stuff. They are "libertarians" who just want to do what they want to do. But somewhere inside, they know that they are fucking up, and it makes them push their agenda even harder. With people like that, the only thing to do is to stop buying stuff from them. Difficult, certainly, but not impossible. David Koch tries to minimize the damage by contributing to organizations such as the ACLU, PBS and the Smithsonian, but it is mostly for show. Charles, on the other hand, doesn't seem to even bother.

[kestrel91316]

12. Um, it's not the Jains who are at fault. Nor the Buddhists. You need to read up

on your religions before you go spewing that "but HE did it, too, Mom!" nonsense.

Here are some of the Jains' core beliefs:
"Every living being has a soul.<18>
Every soul is potentially divine, with innate qualities of infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss (masked by its karmas).
Regard every living being as you do yourself, harming no one and being kind to all living beings.
Every soul is born as a celestial, human, sub-human or hellish being according to its own karmas.
Every soul is the architect of its own life, here or hereafter.<19>
When a soul is freed from karmas, it becomes free and attains divine consciousness, experiencing infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss.<20>
Right Faith (right vision), Right Knowledge and Right Conduct (triple gems of Jainism) provide the way to this realization.<21> There is no supreme divine creator, owner, preserver or destroyer. The universe is self-regulated and every soul has the potential to achieve divine consciousness (siddha) through its own efforts."

[RevStPatrick]

13. Sure, it's not the Buddhists who are at "fault."

Or the Jains.

But they are all a part of the same culture of salvation that has deluded most of the people on the planet from what is really going on. And thank you for the suggestion, I will continue to read up on all the world's religions. It's a favorite passtime of mine. That's how I've concluded that ALL of the salvationist religions are just as bad. Any religion that claims that "when a soul is freed from karma, it becomes free and attains divine consciousness, experiencing infinite knowledge, perception, power, and bliss..." is a part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

What is the solution? To free ourselves of power struggles due to ego. And it's ego that allows us, no matter what the flavor, to believe that there is anything for us beyond the here and now. And ego that allows us to believe that some of us are "more equal than others." We are all here and now and that is all we are. The "Christians" or the "Islamists" might be a little more obnoxious about it, but even the "nice" religions that preach salvation are going to create a situation where people are going to give up some of the here and now for the promise of something better later on.

[kestrel91316]

14. You probably didn't notice that your second paragraph reads very much like

the basic premise of Buddhism at the start. There is no such dreck about "salvation" in Buddhism, but there IS seeking of a state where the ego does not reign supreme. Funny how you have a problem with that........

I am glad that in the USA we have freedom of religion. I don't choose to practice any religion, and draw my spiritual beliefs from many traditions. People like you would deny us freedom of conscience and prohibit all religions, which could prove ultimately impossible because our thoughts reside, unseen, within our heads.

[RevStPatrick]

15. "People like you would deny...

...us freedom of conscience and prohibit all religions..."

Well, that's quite a stretch! You're saying that to an ordained minister, who spent 4 years as a monk in a religious order. And there is plenty of "dreck" about salvation in Buddhism. It's just not called salvation. Instead, it's a cycle of karma and rebirth. It's all a bunch of made-up hooey, just like the Rapture and yawm al-Qiyāmah.

I'm curious... why did you decide you wanted to be mad at me today? Chances are we agree on many or most things. Why did you decide that what I wrote was to be the target of your ire? Because I'm "new" to DU and would probably buckle under the pressure? How did you decide that I was an adversary? Was it because I lumped the "nice," seemingly harmless religions in with the "nasty" religions that are at "fault" for screwing up the world? I'm curious how that happened.

Namaste!

[villager]

7. +1

n/t

[NickB79]

9. That ideology resides inside all of us to a degree, unfortunately

Not just the hardcore deniers. The reason it is there is because, in order to stop catastrophic global climate change in this century, we have to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% or more in the next couple of decades (if we even have that long).

That means we must take steps TODAY to stop carbon emissions, steps that 99% of Americans would consider draconian. I'm sure many, not just the hardcore rightwing movement, would even consider them grounds for armed revolt.

The sad fact of the matter is that we've moved so far down this road that if a politician ever admitted to what truly needed to be done to save our collective asses, he would never get elected. He/she would be lucky to get out of a political debate without being tarred and feathered.

If the public knew what needed to be done, what sacrifices needed to be made, they would be scared shitless at the thought of losing so much of what they consider necessities in their modern lives. And that fear, beyond any political or capitalistic motive, is what feeds this ideology of climate denial. Because as we all know, if there's a monster in the bedroom, all you have to do is pull the blanket over your head to make it go away.

[Snarkoleptic]

10. An argument where we don't need to know whether it's true or not...

A great video, you can cut to the heart of the logic at 1:27.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

[Odin2005]

11. Dark, and GREEDY!