Nope, that will not change their minds one iota. Way to entrenched in their science denial. So long as their money allows them to escape the waves, it won’t matter how many peons drown, so long as it doesn’t affect their bottom line.
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I feel like two big points are being overlooked:
For humanity to acknowledge that using fossil carbon as an energy source is destructive to our habitat is tantamount to making all the buried carbon (which is currently counted as a big asset of very wealthy entities) worthless. Should we be surprised that those wealthy entities are fighting this change, using techniques that include turning the mouth-breathing masses upon us? If we want them to let those assets go, we’ll have to pay for them, dearly.
Second, it isn’t really “billionaires”. It’s capital. Massive transnational corporations are owned partly by very rich people and partly by large groups of the less-wealthy. I own some myself, though the mutual funds in my 401K, though no senators will take my calls. It’s those chunks of capital, which are now legally people (my friends), that are wielding that awesome destructive power.
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Let me correct, or expand that answer just a bit. The oligarchs and huge corporations are not actually denying climate change. They are very aware of it and are engaged in extensive preparations to deal with the consequences. They are, however, shoveling oodles of money out to encourage the gullible among the public and, more importantly, the politicians controlling the government response, to deny it. Basically, any reasonable response would impact their bottom line, and they will defend that to the end. In my opinion, their calculus runs something like, as long as we are making money hand over fist, we can buy our way out of the consequences of the coming disaster. And if millions (billions) drown, starve, dehydrate, well, they should have just chosen to be billionaires too. You can’t help that they were too lazy to do so. (/s if needed.)
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So, they are holding the planet hostage? We have to pay them off, because they deserve that? I mean… NO. How about fuck them? How about they get on board with saving all of us instead of holding the rest of us hostage to their bank accounts?
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Yes, it’s a hostage situation. And yes, “no” is an even better answer, as long as we stop burning fossil carbon. They’re good negotiators, though; I don’t see them getting nothing.
I’m explicitly not saying they deserve it.
They get to be alive, and so do their children. It would be nice if that’s enough for them, but it’s clearly not.
Thanks for clarification on that.
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From what I remember from Geology class, the Earth would eventually recover from whatever we do to it short of severely throwing it out of its orbit, but the point’s moot if we’re not around. And I can’t wait the million(?) years it would need to start again. Stay positive. We may discover a way to turn the tide.
Yes. It’s crazy that that isn’t enough for them. Why should a person who has more than they choose amassing even more to keeping the planet livable?
That kind of goes to my other point, though. Corporations can’t have kids They don’t care about the commons, and they don’t care about humanity. They’re just giant blobs of money moving, like amoebas, toward profit. Our problem is less the few richest people than the few most massive accretions of money.
But they’re not. They are run by people, with at least some of the profit going disproportinately into the pockets of those richest people.
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The people who run them are also just giant blobs moving, like amoebas, towards profit.
No, they’re human beings, making choice. That’s the whole point. If it’s a choice made by a person or a group of people, it’s not inevitable. It can be changed.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html
As ferocious as they have been in defense of free-market ideas, the Koch brothers are also acting out of tangible self-interest, Mayer argues. The Kochs made their money in the carbon business; they have diversified far beyond it over the years, but a stiff tax on carbon could have a significant impact on their bottom line. Mayer reports that an E.P.A. database identified Koch Industries in 2012 as the single biggest producer of toxic waste in the United States. The company has been in and out of federal court over the years as defendants in cases alleging careless and sometimes lethal flouting of clean-air and clear-water requirements. Several have paid tens of millions in fines to settle these cases. It is plausible that the Kochs and some members of their network are participating in politics largely to keep their fortunes intact. “They said they were driven by principle,” Mayer writes of the Koch-led network, “but their positions dovetailed seamlessly with their personal financial interests.”
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