By David Glenn Cox
It was strange, but as I went deep into the news cycle on YouTube, a weather report from Alabama came up in my feed. Curious because it was my old stomping ground, I hit play. They were warning of heat advisories, and you should stay indoors. Now, if you’re not from Alabama or the deep south, you might not understand. People in Alabama warning about the heat is like people in the Sahara warning about sand. Hot summers are the norm.
I used to say being a weatherman in south Alabama must be about the easiest job in the whole world. The forecast for the next six to ten months. Highs in the low nineties, lows in the low seventies with a 40% chance of afternoon or evening thunderstorms. But this was different. The highs were reaching one hundred to one hundred and five. With the Alabama humidity, that’s murderous.
Outside in that heat and humidity, you can’t sweat fast enough to cool down. Your body dehydrates and you can’t drink fluids fast enough to replace them. You end up heat sick and unable to function. A trough of warm, moist humid air was circulating right off the gulf coast and sending temperatures soaring to record highs. It is very unusual. I lived there for over twenty years, and I never saw that before. But every year the weather acts more peculiar than the year before.
Some places in Iowa got six months of precipitation in three hours. That’s not good for the crops as mold can set in. Heavy rains can beat down crops just as high winds can blow them over. Floods in Texas killed over one hundred. The media called it a once in two-hundred-year event. Then it happened again the next week. Floods all over the east coast and the Midwest as a TV anchor called it the “summer storm season.” When I was a boy growing up on this mud ball, there was no such thing as “summer storm season.” There was a wildfire season which now lasts the whole year-round.
It is difficult to determine if the orange nightmare and his henchmen rolled back the EPAs findings on greenhouse gasses regulation simply because Obama created them. Or the Administration is just that much in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby. It is literally dancing on the Titanic, pretending there’s no such thing as icebergs. The fossil fuel industry reminds me of the tobacco lobby of forty years ago. Fighting and using every ounce of muscle trying to stay vital. Already because of electric vehicles and solar power the party is over and demand for gasoline is falling.
The king, in one of his amphetamine fueled rants, attacks wind turbines. ”They’re ugly and kill birds and they make a whole bunch of noise.” Every nonsensical excuse the old fart could come up with and none of it is true. Here in Arizona, a new power plant has acres and acres of solar panels. No isotopes or coal train deliveries, no guards and no fear of a meltdown. And the fossil fuel industry doesn’t like it very much. Even with Russian production sanctioned off the market, the prices are still too low to make fracking profitable. You remember, don’t you? Unleashing (dirty) American energy!
The Administration says these environmental regulations cost money which is passed on to the consumer. They say that at the same time and out of the same mouth; they announce tariffs on the American people. If it were just general political hypocrisy, it could be overlooked. But climate change just killed hundreds of people in Texas. Let’s build some shrines and send flowers and teddy bears while ignoring the real problem staring us in the face. It’s only going to get worse.
Have you noticed lately that there aren’t any more states decriminalizing cannabis? What’s that got to do with energy or climate change, you ask? Nothing! Only it illustrates the purchased nature of the government. In states which have decriminalized cannabis, they sell less alcohol. I bet you can guess who doesn’t like that. So, a campaign donation here or a campaign donation there and the problem is solved. A government which no longer works to improve things but is simply bought, part and parcel, by the highest bidder.
Working counter to the public good and in the face of deadly climate change. Heatwaves, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards all text book climate change. And the fossil fuel industry, like the tobacco lobby of a generation before, doesn’t care how many must die. The tobacco lobby used to claim there was no connection between cancer and cigarettes. Just as the Administration rolls back environment regulation. Drink up! Smoke ‘em if you’ve got them! Full speed ahead! There’s no such thing as icebergs!
They taught me in business school the worst company motto to ever have was, “we’re no worse than the other guy.” As the Administration says those EPA regulations punish the US while China and India don’t have to follow them. So, let’s do nothing! Let’s take the checks and bury our heads in the sand. Let’s use our influence to silence the media. Let’s invent terms like “summer storm season” to explain it away. Let’s call every flood or disaster a once in two-hundred-year event. Let’s explain, it’s always been that way and isn’t it sad too? Thoughts and prayers, everyone. A moment of silence for the dead.
Let’s build more nuclear power plants. They’re sort of green, aren’t they? True, we haven’t figured out how to dispose of the nuclear waste yet, but so what? The checks are rolling in, and big money is coming to town! Sure, they’re dangerous, but what are the chances? Sure, they’re crazy expensive. So what? It’s not my money. Besides, they’re better now and safer too, they promise! But just think of all that largess. You can’t get that with acres of solar panels! A solar plant can be completed in months, while a nuclear plant takes years!
Bought and sold! Until it kills you dead or keeps the children from growing old. Here in this small apartment when the air conditioner comes on. I am reminded of an astronaut in outer space. It is my life support system and if it breaks, I’ll die.
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” ― Frank Zappa
Thank you for reading “This Carbon-Based Life” Non-corporate media in a corporate America. Banned from Facebook and now Reddit too! Why do you suppose that is?
This Carbon Based Life 
Leave a comment