Suborn 1. To induce (a person) to commit an unlawful or evil act.

Hey EnergyTomorrow, API and the entire fossil fuel industry - we have to speak out.   You suborn murder by heavily promoting carbon fuel usage.  You actively encourage species suicide.

You have known for decades that CO2 causes global warming.  And you know that fossil fuels are the major human source of CO2 greenhouse gasses that cause catastrophic heating.

You hide it from consumers, you deny the science and you secretly fund skeptics, and now you seek political support for your carbon fueled campaign of mass suicide.

Science pretty much knows now that we are a doomed species.   It will be a tough life for all our grandchildren, and we cannot expect many humans after that.

And you continue lying when you could have been educating and researching and deploying non-polluting energy.   Now your momentum traps us all.

Your most evil act is to discount the danger and continue promoting ignorance and doubt.   You have pushed the world into total adoption of carbon based fuels, and like big tobacco you covered up science and distracted your market, and now you are groveling for political support to keep your industry going through the chaos ahead.

More than any other industrial segment, yours - oil, gas, coal, all the CO2 carbon fuels - are the most directly responsible for the end of our species.  You continue to worsen the struggle and cause an early death for our progeny.

It is no comfort that your grandchildren are just as doomed as mine.   Eventually we will all be dying for your sins.   But now we know, and we will neither forgive nor forget this mass murder for money.

Richard Pauli   July 4th 2009

Contrary to that Other Web Site

Presenting contrary arguments to Petroleum Industry propaganda site.

A study guide for interpreting that other web site

That other web site: energytomorrow.org - seems to have one purpose: to promote and secure the use of fossil fuels far into the future.   This is a time when we are about to decide to stop further carbon dioxide emission.   Our future depends on minimizing CO2 emmisions immediately.

For decades now, energy companies have funded PR campaigns that try to deny global warming, deny the science and actively inject confusion into the discussion.   Now that the science is well settled - their tactic is changing.   They accept that global warming exists, then dodge the question of whether it is clearly human caused or can be mitigated. Then they move directly to a message that might be re-stated as:  “While we look for a solution, lets keep using oil and coal.”   They ask us to ignore the more aproper action which is to immediately lower all usage, and halt all fossil fuel usage as soon as possible.

They craft a deceitful message saying they want to be part of the solution.   Their strategy is to prolong the widespread use of carbon fuels.  Right now all climate science and engineering dictates the only real solution is to halt all the CO2 emissions - and carbon fuel is the biggest source.   Since the flow of carbon fuels is so highly profitable, their quandary is how to continue the heavy flow and heavy profits.

The way they choose to de-demonize their carbon commodity by connecting carbon fuels as the main way to save the economy - hence our future.   And following classic propaganda principles, they will discuss alternative energy - but never permit the difficult discussion of the most daunting solution: the immediate halt to all carbon fuel combustion.

The Amercian Petroleum Institute is killing our future - just to extend theirs.

ExxonMobil alone delivered $40 Billion to stockholders last year.   The API industry group spends millions on PR and marketing campaigns to keep the world burning carbon fuels and avoid facing the stark science of how CO2 damages our future.   That is so wrong, so unethical, shameful and such horrible corporate behavior - but that’s probably just business - stockholders expect a full effort to keep profits flowing.   Despite the science, they show little concern for dangerously increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.   That’s not right.

As public policy better synchronizes with climate science, we can expect the petroleum industry to use new tactics to mold public opinion, forstall taxation and keep their trade moving.   We might anticipate their messages such as “extending dialog”, “exploring all the solutions”, “energy for our future”, etc.   All this as a way to deflect and delay anything that constrains their business.

“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual.  In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”  - Dr James Hansen to Congress 6-23-08

This is Planetary Treason. And they know it. They try to deny it.  Deflect it. Global Warming is here. Made worse by humans burning carbon fuels. Stop it. CO2 levels are out of control. They know they should turn around. Shame Change now.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming and climate change.  Like no other number, the monthly CO2 reading is an objective and current indicator of how we are doing. The number speaks for itself.

“It’s all about questioning the science to gum up the works. The companies pose as if they are defending open debate and inquiry and are trying to make scientific data available to everyone. In reality, once they get the raw data, they spend the vast resources at their disposal to discredit independent research”

I am grateful to a dear acquaintance who requested a brief update on global warming. She wanted a current problem summary.   I rise to the task and offer this one page overview.

The following is a distillation of a year spent reading, studying and ranting. Statements footnoted with links.

Most all scientists will agree that:

1. Global warming is real; is made much worse by human civilization; and is accelerating.

2. We can no longer fix it.  We can only adapt, mitigate and suffer the consequences.

3. We have begun to act.  But over the next few decades - if we do little or nothing - humans will go the way of the dinosaurs.

4. Actions taken now require 30 to 50 years for effects to begin — and thousands of years to completely revert to a healthy atmosphere.

5. Model scenarios do not exclude a prediction of horrible calamity.   We do not know the time-line for anticipated changes.   Farther out in time is much harder to predict.

6. Climate change is dangerous because of “tipping points” - an important concept to know - where one event triggers another.  Like connected, amplified teeter-totters.   Science has a hard time with tipping points, because they lead to greater complexity and runaway impacts

7. Currently, scientists are disturbed to note the rate of change is picking up.

8. For decades the fossil fuel industry has funded huge PR campaigns to discount the science and restrict legislative reactions that would stifle their business.   These have been very effective.   The Executive branch has actively suppressed government studies on global warming.  Seemingly intelligent people will often deny brutal truths.

“…the problem is not that people aren’t hearing about climate change, but that they don’t want to know. The professional classes have the most freedom to lose and the least to gain from an attempt to restrain it.  Those who are most responsible for carbon pollution are - being insulated by their money - the least likely to suffer its effects. “
…we all have our self-justifying myths.  We tell ourselves a story of our lives in which we almost always appear as the heroes. These myths prevent us from engaging with climate change…
…The most powerful story of all, endlessly narrated by the hired hands of the fossil fuel industry, just as it was once told by the sugar slavers, is that we are both all-important and utterly insignificant.  We are too important to be denied any of the delights we crave, but too insignificant to exert any impact on planetary processes.  We fill the whole frame of the story when it suits us and shrink to a dot when that scale is more convenient. We are capable of occupying both niches simultaneously…
…It is not just because (the movie) The Great Global Warming Swindle is at odds with the entire body of scientific knowledge on this subject that I have bothered to contest it. It is also because it is consonant with the entire body of human self-deception. We want to be misled, we crave it; and we will bend our minds into whatever shape they need to take in order not to face our brutal truths.   - George Monbiot 7-22-08

9. Europe and other nations seem to better understand the problem than the US.  Most humans will not really get it until they feel the sea level rise and experience more storms, floods, heat waves, bio changes, crop losses, etc.

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