On Monday, the resident pariah and Grandpa Munster look-alike of the Senate Ted Cruz announced he’s running for president in 2016.
Cruz built a reputation out of being irritating and supporting terrible political moves. He’s most infamous for his stubborn insistence on repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, also known as the socialist coup d’etat of the American healthcare system.
What has me spiraling into a rage-induced coma about Cruz recently is his continued denial of the occurrence of anthropogenic, or human-caused climate change. On “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” Cruz peddled his misinformation about climate change, characterizing scientists as flip-flopping nincompoops.
If you haven’t hopped on the ‘climate change is happening’ bandwagon yet, I hope you’re enjoying all of the money big oil is paying you to live in their fracking fantasy land.
That’s because if you aren’t getting paid for opposing reform, there’s absolutely no reason to maintain such intense skepticism of a well-proven phenomena.
I’ve seen the climate change argument play out so many times that I sigh every time I encounter it, whether in the comments section of a news article or in real life. Everything I’m saying in this column has been said before. Regardless, the fight needs to continue if we’re going to respond effectively to the changing environment.
The evidence is incontrovertible: 2014 was the hottest year on record, last decade’s sea level rise is nearly double that of last century’s and square miles of Arctic ice sheets are melting at a rapid pace. These all have serious impacts, economic or otherwise, on the ability of future generations to live on this planet.
Typical denier responses to these facts try to explain them away with fringe studies about how sunspots are so hot and powerful that they’re single handedly roasting all of the polar bears. Isn’t it convenient how the sun is something humans can’t control, and therefore is not worth making governmental policy about?
Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that even if sunspots magically disappeared, climate change would only be slowed down. It’s important to realize the arguments against the existence of climate change come from monied interests who only care about their bottom line, not the greater good of the human race.
If you’re not a hard facts type of person and like to rely on trustworthy sources to inform your politics, I understand. Some reliable sources who accept the fact that anthropogenic climate change is occurring include NASA, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bill Nye the Science Guy and 99.8 percent of those who published research about it in peer-reviewed academic journals.
If you guessed there wouldn’t be many trustworthy sources for deniers, you’d be about as right as most deniers are on the political spectrum. Most public intellectuals who deny climate change are benefiting in some way from people like the Koch brothers.
Last month a Harvard climate researcher often cited by climate deniers was recently outed as a fossil-fuel industry shill. Dr. Wei-Hock Soon received more than $1.2 million from the industry while failing to disclose that fact in most of his studies, according to The New York Times.
It’s at this point where many deniers who haven’t already left the conversation throw their hands up and concede that climate change might be real, but any solutions to the problem are going to be the biggest job killers since the EPA was created.
I hate to take away the argument of last resort, but cutting emissions does not mean a worse economy. China, who is the biggest user of dirty fuels, cut harmful emissions in 2014 while growing its economy by seven percent.
Investments in renewable energy created skilled jobs, which means politicians can stop acting like they’re helping the middle class and start actually helping them by supporting renewable energy subsidies.
If anybody is worried about where the money will come from, big oil could stand to give up some of the $2.5 billion in tax breaks they get from the U.S. government. That’s not counting the myriad of indirect subsidies and state breaks companies like Exxonmobil and Royal Dutch Shell get for setting up shop in states like Louisiana.
Needless to say, if you’re still thinking like Cruz after making it through this column, then I don’t think I’ll ever convince you. I just hope you can still look at yourself in the mirror in 50 years when New Orleans is underwater and people need a gas mask to walk around New York.
James Richards is a 20-year- old mass communication sophomore from New Orleans. You can reach him on Twitter @JayEllRichy.