It comes as no surprise that, driven by fossil fuel industry dollars, the attacks on all those who dare to point out the emperor’s lack of clothes are increasing apace.
The latest came in point was an article I saw in an online “news” source attacking those who call for individuals to take responsibility for lifestyle choices that contribute to climate change.
Not content to express an opposing position, the author in a thinly veiled attack on one Swedish teenager, called her not only mistaken but pernicious.
The writer went on to say that individuals should not be bothered to attempt to do anything, because only governmental action on an industrial scale have any hope of succeeding.
Before I proceed, here is a definition of the word pernicious:
“Having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.”
It seems to this observer that these latest attacks on a young person speaking truth to power is the very definition of the word.
As an adult American who has not yet succumbed to either the depredations of senile dementia nor the fascist propaganda and disinformation machinery currently working overtime, it is both sickening and yet expected.
I am old enough to remember that the big tobacco had a legion of doctors and scientists in their employ ready and willing to puppet the industry claim that smoking tobacco was good for you.
I likewise remember industry fighting tooth and nail to continue to use lead paint, asbestos, and ozone destroying CFCs.
Who, having lived through polluted rivers catching fire, air that was unfit to breath, and food so laced with additives and preservatives to be unfit for human consumption, can not look askance at this blatant and obvious attempt to once again play on the naivete of human nature.
Now they would have us believe that the way forward in fighting climate change, the fight for our future generations having a livable planet upon which to exist, should be left to the same industry and government regulators that have actively covered up evidence of the role of carbon dioxide in the warming of planet earth for decades, as well as the data showing the process was well underway in the 1970s.
To be sure this is not the only nonsense being promulgated by the disinformation machine. If the internet was a motor vehicle, run by an internal combustion engine, it would be overheating, loudly knocking, with check engine lights flashing and steam spewing forth from under the hood, unable to carry the load of lies, disinformation, and total bull being loaded on it.
Just today someone posted an article on my timeline claiming “NASA is finally admitting climate change is caused by earth’s orbit.” The source was a conspiracy and disinformation site, closely aligned with other propaganda sites.
However, I also read an article from Newsweek this morning proclaiming that the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg is now the leader of the free world.
Now that’s good news.
Alan Mahood
Chehalis
