Even before the Deepwater Horizon Oilpocalypse was wrought upon the Gulf and the world, it has been clear for quite some time now to many people that we are running on the path to complete and utter ruin and destruction of our own planet if we are not careful.
Fossil fuels, unsustainable activities, and above all else a body of politicians who are more than happy to pay a bunch of lip service to environmentalism with one side of their mouth and then out of the other is quick to do whatever the oil cartels and other dirty energy want them to in order to keep their profits high and the regulations low.
So why is it then, that a new song and a frankly terrifying new music video by the heavy metal band Disturbed describes the problem in a way that is so succinct and stark that it shows them to be smarter than those we have elected to actually lead the country?
Titled "Another Way to Die", the Chicago-based quartet puts it plain and simple.
We're fucking things up and climate change is just another way we idiot humans are going to send ourselves to the grave if we aren't careful.
Framed that way, how is this not the ultimate in populism? Stand up and say you're for people continuing to live. You're "Pro Life". You're pro living. You're pro the human race continuing to survive.
How does that not play better?
Instead, no, we have politicians bickering over things like whether taxing carbon is good enough or why anyone should force the big, bad oil companies to do anything that undermines their profitability. You know, things like paying when they destroy the world that they operate in by chasing their unbridled and unadulterated greed.
Right wingers have spent plenty of time "debating" whether scientists - people who generally know what they are talking about - are correct. Words like "hoax" and "fraud" are often propagated to try and debunk science that, as David Draiman of Disturbed points out, have
"Consequences that we cannot deny"
What more do these people need?
The members of Disturbed are not scientists. Yet it is clear that they get it. All it takes is some heavy guitar and a video compilation and every single person should be sold on it. Everyone.
Time to start asking government leaders some very serious questions.
Most importantly:
"In ignoring climate change, why do you support providing the citizens of the world with another way to die?"
Well?