Joe Romm at ClimateProgress has turned up this amazing YouTube video, courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Carbon Tracker. The first section shows the rise of CO2 in the last 30 years (it starts to feel like a cockroach crawling up your leg). The second section uses climate reconstructions to back up 800,000 years, to put the current crisis into context. Fabulous, in a scary kind of way …
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
