Exaggerations and lies persuade suckers to send billions to Climate Crisis, Inc. scammers
Former National Audubon Society COO Dan Beard once confessed, “What you get in your mailbox is a never-ending stream of shrill crisis-related material designed to evoke emotions so that you will sit down and write a check.”
Neil Diamond sang, “Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies, And everyone goes, 'Cause everyone knows … 'bout Brother Love's show. Hallelujah, brothers!”
Or to Brother Love the Earth’s Traveling Salvation Show, which will save your planet and soul if you mouth the right platitudes and donate to prevent the latest eco-crisis.
As anger grows over the follies of climate and energy policies, UN bureaucrats and eco-warriors are shifting attention to the plastic waste crisis, while still ranting about a fossil-fuel-driven climate crisis.
The Trump Administration is issuing leases and permits for drilling and mining, while erecting regulatory hurdles to massive wind and solar facilities sprawling across wildlife and scenic areas. Meanwhile, explosions in Middle East gas facilities, threats to Strait of Hormuz traffic and the Russia-Ukraine war have sent oil, gas and gasoline prices upward.
However, near-religious ideologies, indoctrination and fearmongering in our schools, and seemingly endless cash flowing to companies, universities and rabblerousers still mean climate and energy realism is unlikely in our lifetimes. Never has so much money drained taxpayer and ratepayer bank accounts, fueled politically connected colleges and corporations, or perpetuated absurd fears and ludicrous solutions that they helped generate and subsidies and mandates they helped enact.
I receive barrages of shrill crisis-related material and entreaties for my retirement money.
A recent Friends of the Earth (FoE) plea revived memories of foul-mouthed Marisa Tomei berating My Cousin Vinny’s Joe Pesci for even thinking about going deer hunting.
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“A mama polar bear nurses her cubs in the safety of their den,” it began. “Then – THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! The walls vibrate. Bits of ice and snow fall from the ceiling. And finally, the den COLLAPSES – crushing mama and babies before they have time to react. Friend, this is the cost of oil drilling in the Arctic. As Trump enacts plans to open up fragile polar bear habitat in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more innocent wildlife could soon face this gruesome fate.” [emphasis in originals]
“A polar bear family reaches the edge of the ice,” the next email wailed. “With no food in sight, they face a choice: swim or starve. Weak from hunger, the cubs aren't prepared for a grueling swim. Sometimes, it takes DAYS to reach stable ice again. But mom has no choice – if they stay, they starve. She must risk losing her cubs to the current if they want a shot at survival.” Donate Now.
These pleas are offensive, intellectually degrading and founded on exaggerations, fables and lies. But as 2024 Sierra Club Changemaker of the Year Bruce Hamilton once said, “It’s what works. It’s what builds the Sierra Club.” And keeps funds flowing to countless Climate Crisis, Inc. corporations.
Reading these appeals, you would never guess that polar bears “are elite long-distance swimmers,” often traveling hundreds of miles at six mph in open ocean. One study followed a bear covering 426 miles in a single journey over nine straight days. Cubs can swim for several days.
Populations have soared from around 12,000 in the late 1960s, when they were over-hunted, to 32,000 in 2023. A few cub or adult deaths, though sad (and natural), will hardly hasten their extinction.
Polar bears are well adapted for life in Arctic climes. Their skin is actually jet-black, enabling them to absorb and retain heat from weak sunlight. Their fur is transparent and hollow, allowing sunlight to reach that dark skin and scatter the light, making them look white.
(My inquiry into “the bear’s greatest weakness” found that it is “their pass rush and defensive line.”)
FoE also asserts that “The Arctic is warming FOUR TIMES faster than the rest of the world.” The claim is meaningless and deliberately misleading. Arctic sea ice is highly variable over years and decades.
“We were astonished by the total absence of ice in the Barrow Strait,” British explorer Sir Francis McClintock wrote in 1860. “I was here at this time in 1854 – still frozen up – and doubts were entertained as to the possibility of escape.”
Moreover, scientists say polar bears may have evolved from equally huge Alaskan brown bears but have been a distinct species since the mid-Pleistocene, some 600,000 years ago. They’ve lived and thrived amid an Ice Age that sent mile-high glaciers across much of North America, Europe and Asia, the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, and the Little Ice Age.
To suggest they are now threatened by slight recent warming is ridiculous.
But the fearmongering continues. It’s what builds Friends of the Earth and other climate crisis mongers.
As to seismic and drilling work in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge causing polar bear dens to cave in and wipe out these cuddly white symbols of climate cataclysm – please!
ANWR is the size of South Carolina (19 million acres) and is home to 800-900 polar bears. Fewer than 2,000 coastal plain acres (equal to one-twentieth of Washington, DC) would actually be disturbed by drilling, roads, buildings and other development work.
Most exploration and development work will be done during the winter months, following extensive environmental reviews dating back several decades and still ongoing. Permits will consider where bears and other wildlife are hibernating, birthing babies, browsing, and battling voracious mosquitoes.
Five decades of oil production in nearby Prudhoe Bay oilfields demonstrates convincingly that oil and wildlife coexist quite well in these magnificent areas – even amid the retrieval and pipelining of 11 billion barrels of oil to date and an estimated 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil remaining. ANWR could hold 6 to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which America and the world will need for decades to come.
After a few days grieving over polar bears, Brother Love the Earth’s Traveling Salvation Show shifted to a crusade against logging in America’s “magical” National Forests.
“Trump wants to send CHAINSAWS deep into our National Forests, turning these precious ecosystems into depressing fields of stumps – so Trump’s corporate buddies can profit,” their next Please-Send-Money email raged. “To make matters worse, he’s evading protections for endangered species.” [emphasis in original].
These “nature lovers” would rather our forests continue to overgrow into billions of thin, dry matchstick trees on millions of acres – ready to erupt into roaring infernos ignited by lightning or arson. These conflagrations burn at 2200 degrees F (1200˚ C) – hot enough to melt aluminum (1220˚ F) and gold (1943˚ F)! They roast common and endangered wildlife, destroy forage and habitats, incinerate soil organisms and organic matter, ensure extensive erosion during future downpours and spring melts – and kill human fathers, mothers and children.
But eco-fanatics scapegoat manmade climate change, instead of criminal forest mismanagement.
Don’t be another PT Barnum “sucker born every minute.” Fight for Truth and Free Debate on energy, climate and environmental issues.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, climate change, economic development and human rights.
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