I find this “debate” over climate change to be reminiscent of the “debate” over tobacco during the ’90’s. Big corporations paying scientists to be uncertain about the evidence, throwing unreasonable doubt into a conversation about public health. As a country, we’d known, for decades prior to my existence, that smoking cigarettes was not a healthy choice, and each passing generation found more disturbing links to illness. I can’t actually believe that any CEO truly thought that his products were a negligible risk (and internal memos show this belief to be true). In the end, it came down to a choice to funnel millions of dollars into lobbyists and partial ownership of politicians rather than face the collapse of a harmful industry. I smoke. Until I finally beat back that addiction, I will continue to do so. I am under no illusions about what it is doing to my body. And I try to limit the harm to others by smoking outdoors, properly disposing of my butts, and maintaining a distance between myself and non-smokers. I do this because, while I am willing to sacrifice my health to look 30% cooler, I don’t know that I have the right to make that choice for anyone else. I will give the tobacco companies credit, though: they never got a court to slap a gag order on an entire town.

Over the past decade, I’ve seen a small shift in the conversation about global warming. No longer is it automatically dismissed out of hand: there’s simply too much evidence to keep one’s head firmly lodged in the sand. The counterattack is now focused on whether the change in climate is man-made. And this is where the final battle will be fought. If it is a natural change in the global climate cycle, then it’s cool if we keep burning gas. A multi-billion dollar industry gets to breathe a (labored) sigh of relief. We get to keep funding those who would seek to cause us harm. The oil and gas companies would rather spend tens of billions now to fight for their right to irreparably harm the planet just to squeeze the final penny out, than to invest in real alternatives which would make their current operations obsolete. It’s not even up for debate whether we will have to get away from our addiction to petroleum: sooner or later, especially at current usage, the wells are going to run dry. Instead of being proactive, and discovering and championing the next big leap in energy, these corporations seem prepared to wait until they are left no other option (after having spoiled the natural beauty that had been set aside that somewhere might remain untouched by human influence) before considering a change in operations.

But it’s not just oil that should be worrying us. The push for “natural gas” has come with its own set of inexcusable thrusts toward “progress.” Fracking is the term that is being stricken from the tongues of millions of Americans. I was going to do some research for this article (I know, spooky, right?), but it turns out that apparently the first rule of Hydraulic Fracturing is that you don’t talk about Hydraulic Fracturing. Okay, that’s not entirely true: we have some idea of what it’s doing to the areas where it is being done, but any comprehensive study of the effects on humans (and animals) is being contested and buried beneath miles of legal red tape by armies of high-priced lawyers. This is an ingenious strategy, really. Instead of having to declare that the data are inconclusive, these companies can merely ensure that that not a single datum ever reaches the light of day. It’s hard to contest something you cannot even verify. But we shouldn’t worry, because if it was harmful, these companies wouldn’t want to kill off their own consumers, would they? I mean, there’s no precedent for something like that in American history, is there? I mean, it’s not like there are blighted, abandoned mining towns, unlivable by man or beast? I’m sure the people who’d been living there had merely lacked the courage to go out and see the world, and if it weren’t for the mining companies, they might never have followed through on it. It’s not like people have dumped so much garbage into a body of water that it can be lit on fire. It’s not like I included an example in the first paragraph.

I enjoy eating food with a certain expectation that it shouldn’t make me ill. I appreciate not having to boil my water before I drink it. I like knowing that it’s safe to breathe the air around me*. I approve of the legislation that prohibits children from working. I give two thumbs up to having a level of compensation that my employer absolutely cannot drop below. These are all things that had to be legislated at some point because the companies of those days refused to do it for themselves. The “Free Market” only works up to a certain point. Companies make themselves complicit in the commission of the most banal of evils because that’s the way it has always been done, or it’s better now than it was before, and until the people see the benefit of change, they don’t know just how much better their quality of life could be.

Corporations don’t exist to look out for the common man, and even most small businesses are geared to profit over greater good. I don’t begrudge them that. Most businesses exist to sell a product, and almost never is that product actual well-being. That is why there should be people who serve the public’s needs. People designated to protect those cannot protect themselves. We formed societies so that we might have a better chance to survive the natural world. But, as in nature, it is the tendency of the strong to prey upon the weak, and unless the weak can band together, prey they will remain. Those in power have an obligation to look to facts (independently verifiable), and not simply accept the assurances of the self-regulated, as they attempt to govern. A man who thinks that science is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo has no business chairing a committee which oversees agencies made up of scientific institutions. Willful ignorance is not a qualification to be a public servant.

-Tex

*California excepted.