The fossil fuel industry spent billions of dollars to deny the climate crisis. The United States spent six long decades losing the climate war, with fossil fuel companies responsible for spreading mass disinformation in order to prevent the limitation of oil, gas, and other fossil fuels.
Decades ago, scientists warned then-President Lyndon Johnson about climate change. The warning on climate change was stark: the world’s countries were conducting a vast, dangerous experiment by releasing planet-heating emissions, which threaten to be to “deleterious from the point of view of human beings.”
That warning came decades ago, in 1965. It has taken nearly six decades for America to address global warming in any kind of significant way, despite being responsible for a quarter of all global emissions. Emissions that have heated the planet.
Experts say it is indicative of lengthy climate war. Pernicious misinformation about the fossil fuel industry, cynicism, and bungled political maneuvering have stymied any sort of action to avert catastrophic heatwaves, floods, drought, and wildfires.
Today on Friday, the House of Representatives is expected to pass a landmark $370 billion in climate spending. It was hashed out in the Senate, and will then go on for President Joe Biden’s signature.
If passed — and it is expected to — it will mark a watershed moment in a saga that can be measured in lifetimes.
The list of previous failures is lengthy. Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof only for Ronald Reagan to tear them down. Bill Clinton tried for a new tax on pollutants only for a sharp backlash from the industry to see that effort die. George W. Bush’s presidency saw the U.S. decline to join the 1997 Kyoto climate accords. There was botched climate legislation in 2009 when Barack Obama was president, despite Democratic majorities in Congress.
Donald Trump then came in and torched even the most modest measures in place to curb planet-burning gases, and campaigned in a coal mining helmet. He ripped the U.S. out of climate pacts and fed the fire of climate deniers.
For decades, America has been woefully behind in addressing climate change, and much of the blame has been laid on the fossil fuel industry. For decades, the industry has known the disastrous consequences of its business model. Instead of addressing it, it has funded an extensive network of operations to conceal these facts and information, and instead, sow doubt among the public over science.
Experts say that for more than two decades, the American public opinion has been heavily influenced by the “merchants of doubt,” selling disinformation designed to make people think the science on climate change was uncertain when in reality, it was not uncertain at all.
Industry lobbying and massive donations ensured the Republican Party has kept in line with the demands of big oil and gas.
The strategy of misinformation worked brilliantly, and still does today, with every single Republican senator voting against the climate bill’s umbrella The Inflation Reduction Act just last week. GOP top dogs called it “Green New Deal nonsense,” and said it was out of step with priorities in America.
This language, despite massive floods wreaking havoc across America, and giant heatwaves as well.
The continued, staunch opposition to any meaningful climate action by Republicans means the climate wars in American politics are not likely to draw to a close anytime soon. But climate advocates hope the gathering pace of renewable energy and electric car adoption will soon be unstoppable, regardless of any attempted backsliding if Republicans regain power.
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