Political Lies And Global Warming

There's an old joke about how you can tell when acountries claim the current problem has mostly been
lawyer is lying - his lips move. Can the same thing becaused by industrialized nations and that their
applied to politicians? Oops - most politicians AREdeveloping economies should not have to be
lawyers!constrained to their current low levels of fossil-fuel use.
Is the public's increasing apathy towards politics partlyGiven the seeming hopelessness of the challenge and
due to the perception that politicians can't be trusted tothe level of sacrifice that would appear to be required
give it to us straight? Have many of us become soof the US to be part of a truly effective global solution,
jaded that we assume it's normal for politicians to lie?it's easy enough to understand why most politicians
Where does "spin" end and outright lying begin? Iswould rather hide from the issue in general or cast
silence on an important issue the same as lying aboutdoubt on it, and why even the politicians who do
it? And why do politicians fail to discuss these issuespublicly support action on global warming are loath to
with us in a frank and thorough manner?discuss the whole truth.
Global warming may be the number one issue onBut the potential effects of global warming, such as
which politicians lie. The scientific facts of globalincreased bad-weather events, coastal inundation, and
warming and its predicted adverse impacts are- most seriously of all - disruption of global food
accepted by the vast majority of climate scientists.production, are all likely parts of the future that will be
Opponents of taking action on the issue are using afaced by our children and successive generations if
few scientists who still have doubts - or who findwe don't fix the problem. The challenge to finding
financial advantage in having doubts - to try to keepsolutions is one of leadership - leadership that will
global warming in the "no clear evidence" category asdevise programs to:
long as they can. But there IS clear evidence of a1) replace our CO2-producing cars and power plants
long-term warming trend, and the consequences ofwith clean technologies;
continued inaction may indeed be globally catastrophic.2) reduce sources of methane (another leading
Unfortunately, those who call global warming thegreenhouse gas) by confronting the issue of
"greatest hoax of all time" are not alone in the Globallarge-scale animal farming operations;
Warming Liars Club. Even those politicians who are3) eliminate chemicals that cause global warming and
courageous enough to fight for action on the issue arereplace them with non-problematic alternatives;
not telling us the whole truth.4) devise innovative programs to reduce the loss of
The Kyoto Protocol, whose implementation wasforests (which serve as "carbon sinks," thus keeping
rejected by the US Senate 94-0, would have requiredsubstantial amounts of CO2 from getting into the
the US and other industrialized countries to reduceatmosphere).
greenhouse gas emissions to 5% below 1990 levels byPoliticians and technologists will be needed to devise
2012. Given the amount that emissions have grownand implement solutions to global warming, and we
since 1990, that may seem like a daunting challenge.consumers will have to be supportive with our dollars
But the problem is really much worse than that, and itand our votes. But to get there, politicians must lead,
causes all but the bravest politicians to lie.not lie.
The Kyoto treaty, while a step in the right direction, isWe saved the world from waves of Nazi
vastly insufficient to reverse the climate change trend.stormtroopers, from hordes of Red Communists, and
The global reduction of greenhouse-gas emissionsfrom the very ugly, unfriendly aliens in "Independence
probably needs to be more like 50% to have theDay." Surely we can also save it from a few kazillion
desired effect, and it needs to happen sooner rathertiny greenhouse gas molecules!
than later. Even tougher is the fact that developing