Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today!
Another day, another stupid assault on the truth by the fossil fuel industry and its paid lackeys.
In a recent op-ed for the New York Post, Tom Harris, the executive director of the so-called International Climate Science Coalition — an organization that’s funded, in part, by the fossil fuel industry — blasted Leonardo DiCaprio for his work on “Carbon,” a new documentary on climate change that I helped write and present.
I won’t bore you with the details, but essentially, Harris’ editorial is basically a grab bag of all the recycled myths trotted out by Big Oil every time someone dares to mention global warming.
They’re all there – idea that man-made climate change isn’t settled science, the idea that greenhouse gasses are actually “good,” the idea that there’s a big globalist conspiracy to hide the truth about CO2. Anybody who reads it is almost guaranteed to lose a few IQ points.
But there’s one lie that really stands out from Harris’ piece. And that’s the idea that climate scientists and climate activists are actually evil, that they’re part of a big virus or “monster” that’s sucking up money and resources all in the name of saving the planet.
Quoting fellow global warming denier Gordon Fulks, Harris writes,
The climate scare… has ‘become a sort of societal pathogen that virulently spreads misinformation in tiny packages like a virus’….The costs of feeding the climate-change ‘monster’ are staggering. According to the Congressional Research Service, from 2001 to 2014 the US government spent $131 billion on projects meant to combat human-caused climate change.
Of all the obscene things said about climate science by global warming deniers, this has got to be one of the worst. Sure, some of the projects aimed at fighting global warming might be expensive, but they’re worth it. And as a new study by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate has found, they’ll actually be better for the economy in the long run, especially if paired with something like a carbon tax.
But the most insane part of the idea that climate scientists and environmentalists are a bloodsucking “monster” is that carbon, which Tom Harris wants you think is a good thing, is the real “monster.” And as Leonardo DiCaprio and I pointed out in our new documentary, it’s about to get a whole lot bigger:
Make no mistake, if we don’t do something soon to keep this carbon monster under control, industrial civilization as we know it could vanish, maybe even forever.
There is no debate, and the science is settled. Global warming is real, and probably worse than we thought.
Ignore the lies from the fossil fuel industry and start taking action before it’s too late.
Go to greenworldrising.org for more information on how you can fight the carbon monster and save planet earth, the one planet we call home.
An urgent fundraising appeal: We still need to raise $12,000
Truthout is one of only a few platforms for justice-oriented, grassroots journalism. Today, we face an existential threat.
Due to Google’s launch of AI search, we’ve seen a drastic plunge in our site traffic and, as a result, our revenue. We lost 15 percent of our readership overnight. This was a readership we painstakingly built over decades, and it vanished because Google chose corporate greed over a healthy democracy.
We are fundraising right now to meet our basic operating expenses. If you can support Truthout with a one-time or monthly donation, you will make a significant impact on our work. Anything you can do makes a difference — we appreciate your support.