(Editorial introduction: David Dougherty, CACOR member, recently posted this series of Tweets. They warrant a wide audience. Editor)
Our politicians are like cooking class instructors in final exams all over the world. They’re watching some of us students prepare salad bc we want to eat tasty safe food. They’re watching others cooking steak on gas cook-tops. Smoke can be seen rising from the pans. /2 of 18
Those would-be chefs are busy chatting abt how great the steaks will be. Meanwhile, they’re turning up the heat slightly every minute or so. More smoke, more flame under the pans. The observing politicians can see & smell the smoke. /3
When the steaks get flipped, they can see the black char worsening. They hear the chatter abt how great the steaks will taste & how great the would-be chefs jobs will be after graduation. They can hear the smoke alarms starting to blare one at a time. /4
The politician-instructors have the power to turn off the gas supplies, to order the burner flames reduced, to have the pans taken off the stoves, to have burning steaks in some pans covered to quench the flames. /5
The politician-instructors are in touch with each other & senior professors by phone. They’re discussing whether there is a problem, whether the steak chefs are causing it, & whether anything can be done about it. /6
They ask the professors, who say: Yes, the kitchens are starting to burn down, some students are already collapsing from the smoke, & everyone is going to die bc there is nowhere to which to escape. The steak chefs are causing it & making it worse by the minute. /8
The profs say the gas supplies needed to be reduced on all the burners long ago, but given where things are now, the supplies need to be severed…NOW. Instead of following this advice, the politician-instructors phone some friends at the gas supply companies. /9
The advice they get is to keep the gas flowing. Think of the donations that will flow, the kickbacks that can be paid from profits, & the jobs that would be threatened by stoppages. /10
Besides, the fires will employ large numbers of people: firefighters, police, paramedics, doctors, nurses, morticians, grave diggers, insurance assessors, architects, construction crews. The list goes on & on. Think of all the economic activity, all of it with kickbacks. /11
So, here we are. Our politicians are being told by professors that #ClimateChange is happening, we’re causing it, & we need to reduce #emissions NOW. They’re listening to people who love using #FossilFuels for whatever reasons & to fossil fuel suppliers. /12
In fact, our politicians are making things worse by continuing to encourage discovery of more fossil fuel supplies, faster extraction, & expansion of markets for fossil fuel use. /13
The politicians, fossil fuel company executives, bankers, & business moguls continue to meet over caviar & champagne (for which the public purse pays via tax deductions). They’re busy investing in more fuel use. /14
Meanwhile, they are spinning us tales abt their virtuous efforts to save the planet, spur economic growth, & give us good jobs. All around us the evidence of a mounting #ClimateCrisis is clear & growing. /15
We can all see the storms, floods, heat waves, melting permafrost & ice, rising seas, droughts, dying vegetation, expanding deserts, spreading invasive species, human bodies. Some only see the money they’ll make from the mayhem. /16
We could stop this madness. We have the intelligence to see our own long-term best interest. Sadly, every day it is looking like we’re intent on continuing the economic growth model we have entrenched. /17
It is not time to yield in this fight. It is time for grim determination in the face of disaster. We must fight for our future. We must fight in the streets & the schools. We must fight in the supermarkets and the places of worship. We must never concede. /end
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