The crime is not the destruction of the environment, but the massive fraud being perpetrated in order to continue this on a large scale. Its a propaganda/public relations/political crime. It is the molding of public opinion to continue the destruction using all the economic, psychological, social, communications and political technologies available.

These guys know exactly what they are doing, they are perfectly aware of the nature of the problem and of their complicity in it, what needs to be done to solve it and why they don’t want to do it. They may feel that they will not suffer from the environmental consequences, but its not because they think the consequences will be minimal. What they actually believe is that due to their resources and wealth and influence they will be able to continue to profit from the destruction to come. And in the meantime, they can profit by selling what is required to guarantee the destruction arrives on schedule.

Its the Masque of the Red Death all over again, the plague ravages the countryside while within the castle the party goes on uninterrupted. If the oceans rise, they can afford to move to higher ground. If the climate deteriorates, they will be able to buy up (and fortify) the dwindling pockets of gentle weather. If the global food production takes a hit, they can afford to pay a premium price for whatever remains. If resources are short they will be able to afford them. If civil strife breaks out, they will have their gated communities and security guards to hide behind, not to mention the authoritarian police and courts and armed forces needed to keep the rabble under control. Whatever horror awaits the world, it will affect them last, and they will live very well themselves selling us the goods and services we’ll need just to hang on, as well as the means to make things worse.

Its Catch-22, where the aircraft medical kits are being plundered of bandages and morphine so they can be peddled on the black market. All the injured crewmen get in return is a stock certificate redeemable if they survive.

Or if you’ll forgive another strained metaphor…the Titanic’s first class passengers are denying the masses in steerage places on the lifeboats by buying up the choicest seats, and bribing the crew to enforce the evacuation in their favor.

Are they overly optimistic and heading for disaster along with the rest of us? Probably, with arrogance comes stupidity. But that will do us little good.

Maybe, though, the answer comes from recent initiatives to grant legal personhood to lakes and streams, giving some standing to people who want to step up as guardians of these persons who can’t defend themselves.

What would happen if the Earth, in the form of its notional avatar “Gaia”, were to be granted legal personhood? Seems like it flips things so that the burden of proof would be on polluters to defend why they’re not obviously committing assault on a helpless person. It’d enlist every DA and public prosecutor in the world as a protector of the environment.

Just a thought. In a rational world…

It is the Singularity, the Fugue. No, it isn’t the revolt of our robots or machines, or some insurrection by AI, but it is our own artifacts (corporations) waging war on us, their creators, the very people who devised them and who they supposedly serve. Our own creations are ready to destroy us to ensure their own existence and continued prosperity–at our expense.

It isn’t a question of a difference of opinion as to whether a problem genuinely exists, or its severity, or what to do about it. It is a secret attempt to ignore it and delude the victims into doing nothing to protect themselves.

No, I’m not trying to excuse this abomination by appealing to some science fiction scenario of a “Revolt of the Machines”. The humans who participate in helping our rogue creations wage war on us are also traitors to humanity. I hope they spend their tax cuts in Hell.

This leaked plan was launched the year after the Kyoto Protocol was signed. It was developed by representatives from the API, Exxon, Southern Company, Chevron, and a team of people at free market organizations along with communications professionals. The plan includes a multimillion dollar, multi-year budget to install “uncertainty” in the public policy arena. Target audiences are detailed including media, policy makers and science teachers and the plan includes an objectives list titled “Victory will be achieved…” itemizing the measurable goals of the plan. Multiple groups Exxon would subsequently fund are named in the plan.

In their eight-month-long investigation, reporters at InsideClimate News interviewed former Exxon employees, scientists and federal officials and analyzed hundreds of pages of internal documents. They found that the company’s knowledge of climate change dates back to July 1977, when its senior scientist James Black delivered a sobering message on the topic. “In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels,” Black told Exxon’s management committee. A year later he warned Exxon that doubling CO2 gases in the atmosphere would increase average global temperatures by two or three degrees—a number that is consistent with the scientific consensus today. He continued to warn that “present thinking holds that man has a time window of five to 10 years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.” In other words, Exxon needed to act.