Startling climate insight – “There’s always changes that take place”
Today (June 9, 2019 as I write), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brushed off concerns about climate change with a string of banal commonplaces that reflected either his own state of ignorance, or more likely a cynical reliance on the ignorance of the public. For detail, see https://myfox8.com/2019/06/09/pompeo-downplays-climate-change-suggests-people-move-to-different-places/
Pompeo trotted out the well-worn platitude that “the climate’s been changing a long time. There’s always changes that take place.” This expresses the fallback position of defenders of the fossil-fuel burning status quo, by conceding climate change is indeed taking place, but say it is a consequence of “natural cycles.” This position bolsters the status quo in two ways, by implying (1) it’s not so bad, we’ve been through this before; and (2) human activity has little or nothing to do with it.
In the recent past, Pompeo has shown his enthusiasm for the commercial advantages of climate change by celebrating reductions in polar sea ice that may open “new passageways and opportunities for trade,” likening an ice-free Arctic Ocean to “21st Century Suez and Panama Canals.” In other words, climate change was a Good Thing. Now—hedging his bets due to military and intelligence communities warnings about disruptions, and a shift in public opinion—he pronounces climate change a security threat to be addressed “in ways that are fundamentally consistent with our values set here in the United States.” Since Pompeo has been the recipient of $375,000 in campaign contributions from Koch Industries in his Congressional career (see profile in Business Insider) , we can be pretty sure the “values” he is talking about are not geared to cutting carbon emissions.
Pompeo expressed optimism with nebulous ideas about how we will cope with climate change: “Societies reorganize, we move to different places, we develop technology and innovation,” he added. “I am convinced that we will do the things necessary as the climate changes.” And “we’ll fix it by the ways we organize.”
As an example of coping with sea level rise, he cites the Netherlands: “I was just in the Netherlands, all below sea level, right? Living a wonderful, thriving economic situation. The world will be successful. I’m convinced. We will figure out responses to this that address these issues in important and fundamental ways.”
Put on your rose-colored glasses, folks. We’re in for a fun ride.
Perhaps a geographically-challenged U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo was not informed that only 20% of the population of the Netherlands lives below sea level. Whatever the actual percentage, Make-Believe calls for a lie the gullible public will swallow. Of course the Netherlands is one of the world’s wealthiest countries—in contrast to one of the world’s poorest, Bangladesh, where 20 million-plus people, more than the entire population of the Netherlands, will be displaced by sea level rise in the next 30 years. The Netherlands has far more resources to cope with climate change than do developing countries, many of whose citizens will be forced, in Pompeo’s words, to “move to different places.” That is, to become climate refugees—not that Mike Pompeo would ever use such a sinister term.
He knows, but will not tell
It’s not clear how well Pompeo understands the geography of northern Europe and the latest dreadful impacts of climate change elsewhere—India is currently undergoing the longest heat wave on record—but it is clear that he, unlike his boss, is no fool. He graduated first in his class at the United States Military Academy at West Point, majoring in engineering management, and received a Juris Doctor at Harvard Law School, where he served on the board of editors of the Harvard Law Review.
It defies the imagination to suppose that Pompeo fails to understand the basics of climate science. He knows what’s going on, much as the executives at Exxon have known for the last 50-some years what’s been going on with carbon emissions and global warming. But he, like most other Republicans who want to keep their jobs in public office while milking the private sector (the fossil fuel industry in particular) have found it convenient to play a rosy Make-Believe while counting on accumulated wealth and rich friends to see them through bad times to come. Compassion has little place in Mike Pompeo’s global game plan—his complicity in Donald Trump’s heartless treatment of refugees is proof positive of that.
Perhaps it’s comforting that Pompeo, while failing to publicly acknowledge the overwhelming part humans play in climate change, he no longer bothers with an outright denial of the science. Maybe he’s thinking about what he’ll have to tell his grandchildren 20 years hence.
NOTE: As I “go to press” with this, I read that climate contrarian William Happer is still getting publicity on his Denial campaign in the White House and now on the National Security Council.