Let me quote something from the fuckin' epic climate change report put out last week by the (checks notes) federal goddamn government. It comes from Chapter 16, under Key Message 3: "Climate change is already affecting U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) assets by, among other impacts, damaging roads, runways, and waterfront infrastructure. DoD is working to both fully understand these threats and incorporate projected climate changes into long-term planning to reduce risks and minimize impacts. There are many examples of DoD’s planning and action for risks to its assets from climate change. DoD has performed a comprehensive scenario-driven examination of climate risks from sea level rise to all of its coastal military sites, including atolls in the Pacific Ocean. In the Arctic, the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy are pursuing strategies to respond to the changing geopolitical significance resulting from the projected absence of summer sea ice in the next few decades."
You got that? The Department of Defense is preparing for climate change not because it's a fantasy, but because it's real and it's happening now. By the way, the paragraph before this one says, in essence, when shit is all fucked up, people freak the fuck out and that's gonna require some military action. You think that if climate refugees or even terrorists inspired by water scarcity and searing heat in some regions, not to mention wars over shrinking access to food and water, were a possibility, we might want the Department of Defense to be ready to deal with it.
The Key Message should be "Stop being such arrogant pricks and fuckin' do something already before we're all up to our tits in ocean water while our faces burn off." Repeat after ever section.
At this point, to deny climate change is to demonstrate either ignorance or greed or both. You may wanna argue about how to solve it, but saying that this is all part of some natural cycle or "what about when they said there was gonna be an Ice Age" or assorted other bullshit should simply exclude you from the conversation. Denying climate change and denying that human activity has caused it is akin to denying there is a sun or paper or that dog you're looking at right now.
I'm reminded of a moment in my political philosophy class where a smartass douchefuck thought he was gonna get one over on the prof. She was making a point about how we need to agree on basic reality to move forward in the world and had just said, "If we all see a frog, we agree that it is a frog."
Douchefuck responded, "Well, you may say it's a frog, But I may say it's a banana."
Her response was elegant and final. She said, "You'd be wrong or ill, and either way, we shouldn't trust you." That shut Douchefuck up for a few days. And it's what we should say to so many insane, anti-science beliefs.
Still, though, the news networks insist on bringing on some godforsaken gooch scratcher to provide an illusion of balance on climate issues. For instance, on CNN, Erin Burnett had on Robert Reich and creepy-ass Stephen Moore, who said, no shit, "Can the two of you tell me one apocalyptic claim made by the environmental movement that has been true?" This is an article of faith on the right, that because no one is Nostra-fuckin'-damus and pinpointing exactly when some terrible shit will happen, climate change is a big joke.
The correct response to this is "Get the fuck off my show and get the fuck away from anywhere rational humans gather." 'Cause, see, among the shit that's been predicted that's happened is severe heat waves (talk to people in India, Canada, Egypt, Australia, and Portugal, for a start), stronger hurricanes (ya think?), and rising seas (it fucking floods during high tide regularly in a bunch of places now). Anyone denying that this is happening, that people did this, and that people need to solve that shit now needs to be whipped into the hinterlands. And if you say that we need to put jobs ahead of saving the entire planet, you should be locked in a madhouse.
This pariah status needs to extend to Republicans elected officials, too. Here's noted pig ball fondler, Senator Joni Ernst, on CNN this past Sunday: "Well, we know that our climate is changing. Our climate always changes. And we see those ebb and flows through time." Let's not even get into Donald Trump's pathetic response where he declared himself intelligent and then mouth-farted something utterly dumb, saying that his own employees are full of shit on this and he knows better because his big fuckin' gut or whatever.
Alluding to another talking point on the right, that climate scientists are making coin on the crisis, Stephen Moore gurgled something about "The climate change industrial complex." Fuck you, man. Scientists are often faculty members at universities or staff members at labs. They get a decent salary, maybe even a hundred grand, perhaps two, if they're really important. They might get a book published that makes a few bucks. The grants they get aren't for themselves. They're for studying and experimenting and traveling and paying for staff. No one's getting rich on the NSF's dime.
On the other side, though? In 2013, Charif Souki, then the CEO of Cheniere Energy, an oil and gas company made $142 million. Who's in it for the money?
Essentially, what Stephen Moore and all the climate denialists are doing is jacking off the dick of the fossil fuel industry until it spooges cash into their faces that they voraciously lap up.
It's a goddamn embarrassment that they are still treated as anything more than the lying shills or deranged morons that they are.
