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Friday, Sept. 14, 2005 (revised) From today's Planet Waves essay: We may wonder why "Republicans" -- I am loathe to even call them that, as it seems to be yet another piracy scam -- refuse to admit that global warming even exists. But their violence toward those who do reveals something we need to look at. The oil industry controls the government and the oil industry is THE great producer of CO2, which is turning the Earth into a greenhouse. This is not merely denial on their part; it is intentional fraud. I would love to see the internal memos and technical papers being fired around amongst oil industry scientists, managers and executives admitting their early knowledge of the problem -- what in the law is called "scienter," or guilty knowledge. Shall we venture a guess as to how far back in history that knowledge goes? If the patterns of industry's early knowledge of environmental disasters hold true, based on copious studies of other environmental issues (cigarettes, PCBs, dioxins and others), we will probably find the most extensive and sophisticated documents, resources and computer models pertaining to the global warming issue within the private document holdings of the oil companies themselves. These will be arranged neatly next to a folder full of press releases and public relations strategies designed to prove that the whole phenomenon is nonexistent, complete with fake studies that prove it's not happening or that the scientific findings are ambivalent -- therefore, media bosses will be put on notice that to report the truth would be "unfair." There will be the obligatory profit and loss statement that analyzes profits in different scenarios, such as if the public wakes up and alternative energy takes root, or if the government finally gets serious about regulations, and so on. I promise you will see the statement, "the truth will be very bad for our profits." We have, furthermore, been hearing for years -- decades -- how oil companies have bought up alternative energy patents, thus suppressing new technology. Energy is the most abundant resource in the universe. When the stoplights went out in Los Angeles last week and there were pictures of television of intersections with the traffic lights out, the first thing I thought was: do we really need to connect these traffic lights by wires powered by oil while they bake out in the southern California sunlight?
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