Global Warming In The PARALLEL UNIVERSE

By: John Caruso

Two entirely unrelated articles for your consideration.  First, "Study Finds Big Storms on a 1,000-Year Rise":

The North Atlantic Ocean has spawned more hurricanes and tropical storms over the last decade than it has since a similarly stormy period 1,000 years ago, according to a new study. [...]

The study's lead author, climate scientist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, said finding a reliable way to reconstruct centuries of past hurricane activity could help scientists tease out whether future climate change will alter storm patterns.

Next, "Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama's climate change strategy":

The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama's climate change strategy, according to campaigners.

A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ''energy citizen'' rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a "sensitive" plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a "human face" on opposition to climate and energy reform. [...]

The API strategy also extends to a PR drive. Gerard cites polls to test the effectiveness of its arguments against climate change legislation. It offers up the "energy citizen" rallies as ready-made events, noting that allies – which include manufacturing and farm alliances as well as 400 oil and gas member organisations – will have to do little more than turn up.

"API will provide the up-front resources," the email said. "This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns."

As I pondered this second article, I thought: what if in some parallel universe we were facing a similar global threat, but with the difference that this threat could only be resolved in a way that promised to be massively profitable to the oil companies?  Maybe the only practical solution to this planetary crisis (known on parallel Earth as "global flensing") was to release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through increased usage of fossil fuels.

Imagine the American Petroleum Institute financing "energy citizen" rallies calling on politicians in Washington to pass mandatory SUV-ownership laws in order to counter global flensing and create jobs.  Imagine endlessly repeated TV commercials with Chevron spokespeople telling you that if you really love the planet, you'll a) stop taking the bus to work and b) call your representatives to demand that they take action to recarbonize the atmosphere.  Imagine high-priced PR firms sending lobbyists to Capitol Hill to guarantee that corporate emissions minimums would be mandatory rather than voluntary.  Imagine oil company CEOs fanning out on Sunday talk shows to demand swift, binding government regulation to address this dire threat.  And finally, imagine comprehensive global flensing legislation, backed by every oil company in the country, sailing through Congress in 1997—rather than some pathetic set of half-measures limping along (and under withering attack) over a decade later.

(Fun, isn't it?  And beyond the oil companies: imagine the Clinton administration backing the Kyoto Flensing Protocol to the hilt—even going so far as to insert a controversial clause mandating lower gas mileage in all new school bus-size SUVs.  Imagine hoards of angry conservatives screaming that it's our patriotic duty to drive any distance over 75 feet.  Imagine dozens of leftist global flensing skeptics signing a letter claiming the whole thing is a hoax cooked up by the oil companies, but being mocked—when they weren't being ignored—by the corporate media.  And imagine the problem being resolved so quickly that some people would wonder if there'd ever really been anything to worry about.)

That's life in the parallel universe.  Unfortunately, in this universe the only obvious way to address the global threat we face has the entirely unacceptable side effect of reducing the profits of the most powerful corporations on the planet.  And next to that, what is the continued existence of human civilization as we know it?  Not much, apparently.

Oh well; just our bad luck for ending up in a reality whose existential threat has such an unfortunate profit distribution.  But while we're fighting over the last few cockroaches and waiting for another mega-typhoon to put us out of our misery, we can at least console ourselves with the thought that in maybe half of the other parallel universes out there, everything turns out just peachy.

WILL THIS PRE-PLAGIARISM NEVER CEASE?  Ralph Nader often says that "If the oil companies owned the sun, we'd have solar by now."  I really wish he'd stop stealing my bits before I make them up, since people may get the crazy notion that it's me copying him and not the other way around.

— John Caruso