WE MUST face the unpleasant and painful truth about what is happening to the planet and our lives. You may think that the climate catastrophe facing mankind is global warming but in fact there are at least three catastrophes behind the climate change disaster.
The first one is the effect of CO2, nitrous oxide and methane that are covering the planet like a blanket and locking in the heat of the sun. It is like putting the planet in a glass-covered greenhouse. The heat is causing devastating droughts, leaving millions of people without food. This is causing massive migration of the hungry populations from the South to the North. The earth and forests are burning down. In Russia, Europe, the USA and Australia, enormous forest fires destroy all before them.
The oceans filled with plastic are heating up, reducing fish stocks, and the water is evaporating into clouds that bring massive rainstorms that overwhelm dams and rivers causing floods of biblical proportions. There are few forests left because of massive deforestation in the Amazon and parts of Asia and Europe. Forests absorb CO2 and hold excessive rainwater. The animals are dead from drought or floods and landslides are burying villages. Rising sea levels and wind-driven tides due to the melting of the Arctic ice add to the destruction. This we see on our television screens already and there is much more to come.
The second catastrophe is the corrupt politicians in cahoots with money moguls of giant multinational corporations that get them elected to office. They support the oil, gas and coal industries and allow global warming to happen by doing little or nothing to mitigate the gasses or curbing the burning of fossil fuels.
The corrupt politicians work with scheming tycoons that lobby for laws that give them billions of payments in subsidies to promote the oil and coal industries. The payments of taxpayers’ money to US corporations amount to US$20 billion annually. From that, 20 percent is for the coal industry and 80 percent for oil and natural gas companies. The EU spends US$55 billion annually in subsidies to the fossil fuel industries. In the US, approximately $2.1 trillion dollars was earned by the oil and gas industries in 2021, according to The Environmental and Energy Study Institute. (https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-cost).
The politicians in the pay of the corporations delay legislation to switch from coal and oil to renewables and block laws that mandate electric cars. However, in public, they are monster hypocrites and liars promising to end subsidies and change to renewables. The G7 nations made such a pledge recently, but will they do it? Since the year 2000, coal-burning plant capacity has increased by 100 percent led by China and India. There are 80 nations using coal plants to generate electricity, most get government support. Australia will continue burning coal and selling it abroad. More coal plants are being built in many countries. The promises that will be made at the COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland are just that- empty promises. As 18-year old environmental activist Greta Thunberg says, it is just Blah Blah Blah. (To be continued)/PN
