Climate of Our Future

Critics of President George W Bush’s 6 plus years of inaction on global climate change have long suspected the lurking shadow of Big Oil behind his administration’s tactics of delay and denial. Now comes the proof of petroleum’s greasy little fingerprints all over Bush’s energy policy, thanks to the revealing article The Secret Campaign of President Bush’s Administration To Deny Global Warming by Tim Dickinson.

It’s a piece that’s sure to get your blood boiling as you step systematically through the hijacking of our government by fossil fuel industry lobbyists appointed at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney, handmaiden to a coalition of the worst polluters. It’s a stark indictment of our current political system that has grown so corrupt by coroporate influence that the very future of our planet was put at risk in order to safeguard Big Oil and Coal’s profits.

The article’s information is based on internal administration emails and memos that the magazine acquired via Freedom Of Information Act filings. There are also first-hand accounts from former insiders, such as Christine Todd Whitman who resigned as chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency after witnessing repeated attempts to alter and suppress reports that revealed the extent of the damage carbon emissions were causing to the planet’s climate.

The story Mr. Dickinson constructs from this evidence will shock even the most cynical among Bush’s critics. Upon taking the reigns of the administration’s energy policy, not only did Cheney try to gut the EPA of scientists that ExxonMobil viewed as critics, but he installed industry lobbyists to run the Council on Environmental Quality, which became Cheney’s “shadow EPA.” The CEQ’s express mission was to create enough doubt and confusion in the public mind on the causes and degree of climate change to mute calls for immediate federal action. The agency also promoted junk science that was published by organizations the oil companies funded.

The time for debate is over; the science is in and so is the truth about our current government’s real loyalties. Human activities, especially our continued reliance on fossil fuels, are driving our climate toward a tipping point that will have catastrophic impacts on our society. We can and must act to reverse these trends, and our first step should be to give the boot to those masquerading as public servants but following the orders of Big Oil.

(A special thanks to Goldy who directed me to this article)