The first Earth Day in 1970 was a ground roots movement taken on by those of us that were watching the pollution destruction that was being created. We took the challenge, making a vow to take the first steps and participate as activists to do something about it. Although young and idealistic, we believed that if people were educated, they would help to alter the damage and as we embarked on that quest, we came face to face with the conservatives that denied. We were pitted against people who had financial investments in the toxins that were being dumped on the land and in the lakes and streams, and generations later, it is the same type of people that are denying that climate change is real
If for a moment, you turned back the clock and took a hard look at the massive amount of toxins that were being spewed onto every area of the earth, viewing pictures of the annihilation of entire eco-systems and water areas that had signs displaying a skull-and-crossbones, you would shake your head in wonder that anyone would deny what mankind was doing to our planet. But then, just as now, the corporations and big businesses that were profiting from the dumping, redirected attention away from the problems so the general populace would join them in making the word ‘pollution’ a nonexistent term. From the board rooms to the Congress and Senate, money was being poured in to support their profit and greed, with the main goal of reducing the topic of ecology to being just a bunch of extremists.
Newton’s Third Law dictates: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, and when the toxins that were being rapidly dumped eventually led to illnesses and death, it was then that they could not deny any longer. The saddest part was the realization that the greed was so strong, that the deniers were willing to bet the lives of their own children and grandchildren.
One of the main arguments that the deniers blasted back at us at that time was that the ‘ocean is too vast and nothing that we, as humans, add to it, will make any difference’. Years may have passed and laws may have been put into place to protect and replenish so much that had been done, but the premise of denial still stands. The conservatives that hold onto their money bags so tightly have simply replaced the method of polluting while maintaining their stance on denial. It is the atmosphere that they are willing to put at stake.
Today, the denial encroaches on the very lifeblood of the country, the oil and gas companies and the massive trillion dollar industries that have been built around them. In this case, the deniers are trying to use different tactics by displaying the natural ebb and flow of earth’s climate changes. The denial is that spewing all of the carbon dioxide and methane has nothing to do with global warming, it is just the natural order of things. They have sought out and paid a few random scientists to repute the volumes of reports from scientists around the globe that support climate change. In a rather bizarre twist, the deniers are even accusing the thousands of scientists as belonging to a conspiracy group, all signing their names in anticipation of receiving ‘grant money’ for their own projects.
Now we enter the part that conservatives and deniers dislike the most: real science. The U.S.National Ice Core Laboratory has been collecting, storing and studying ice cores from all over the world. They act as a repository for scientific research for the purpose of reconstructing past earth climate states. The vast amounts of data that has been gleaned from examining the ice cores demonstrates the intensity of climate change variations that began nearing the dawn of the industrial revolution. As quantities of industrial pollutants such as CO2 elevated, so has the temperature of the earth, and while mother nature does have forests that act as a ‘cleansing’ process, the destruction of the world’s rain forests have degraded that defense. In essence, mankind is dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere than the earth can handle and this is causing global warming.
The next attack that comes from the deniers, usually includes why the sudden change in terms from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’. Of course, if they followed any of the scientific evidence, they would understand that global warming is a subdivision of climate change and climate change is the ultimate outcome. It appears that nothing that occurs will alter their opinion or sway their ideas of some massive scientific conspiracy. Even the information regarding the coldest records set in the U.S. in February 1-28, 2015 is not enough. The U.S. is continuing to experience weather pattern variations, the like of which have never been recorded in the past. The additional drought conditions that are being seen on the West Coast of America are explained away by the deniers as expected turn of events that are normal. Just as it was in the past, it appears that until people start dying or, in this case, their investments start being affected, the conservative deniers will simply continue to put their fingers in their ears.
Many of those that refuse to accept climate change scoff and indicate that the melting ice caps and glaciers won’t cause any problems, with the exception of a few of the world’s islands and adding new ‘beachfront property’. The severity of the situation goes far beyond that. As more fresh water from melting ice caps is added into the world’s oceans it mixes with the salt water that runs the ‘gulf stream belt’ engine. It is the Gulf Stream that is the main force behind keeping a temperature balance everywhere from the Americas to Europe. If the Gulf Stream belt flow stops, the earth itself will begin to enter another ice age.This has the potential to create a ‘snow ball earth’ which is believed to have occurred in the past due to the same circumstance.
While we may have come a long way from being called ‘tree huggers’ and extremists in the early days of the ecological movement, the trolls and ogres that fought against the movement still remain. As it was then, and is now, the incentive to choose ignorance is based on the money trail and today, the conservatives are being backed by all of the corporations who stand to lose the most. Thanks to the many ecology movements that have blossomed and grown, world leaders are paying attention to the scientists and data and are trying to institute new ground rules to help to reduce carbon emissions. I just hope they haven’t waited too long and it’s not too late.