A bleak future and Rush Limbaugh
I happened to catch a few minutes of the Rush Limbaugh radio show today, while running an errand in my car. It underscored for me why the human race is headed for a disaster of Biblical proportions.
In his usual breezily self-confident manner, El Rushbo was citing a few instances of unusually cool temperatures as "evidence" that global warming is the bunk. (El Rushbo conveniently overlooks the fact that global warming has nothing to do with an occasional cool spell here and there; it's a gradual, inexorable, global process.)
But of course, facts have little to do with Rush Limbaugh's appeal. His conservative audience tunes in to have their prejudices and preferences validated and confirmed. ("If you hear it on the radio, it must be right. Right?")
El Rushbo then went on to declare that global warming was a liberal conspiracy to make you, the dittohead listener, give up your personal freedoms and surrender to ever-greater government control. (He actually said it was a liberal plot.)
And what personal freedoms are these liberals trying to take away from you?
The freedom to drive a gas-guzzling 8-cylinder car.
The freedom to run your air conditioner as much as you like.
The freedom to pollute the air and water in the name of jobs and the economy.
The freedom to produce garbage in ever-increasing amounts. (Recycle? Up yours!)
The freedom to continue to live a wasteful, luxurious lifestyle without any consideration of its effect on the environment.
The freedom to have as many kids as you want.
And when you consider that it's not just American conservatives who are giving the middle finger to any attempt to get them to behave in an ecologically responsible manner. There are about a billion Chinese who are dying to live the same wasteful, conservative Republican lifestyle. And there are probably another billion people in Asia who want it, too, and who would totally agree with Limbaugh's dittoheads that "the earth can take care of itself."
This is the world your kids and grandkids will inherit...a world where much of the earth that is now in "temperate" regions will be uninhabitable....a world where rising oceans have covered places like New York City, with economic consequences in the $trillions....a world where millions die of starvation and disease and the ones who survive will fight nasty wars over the dwindling supply of food and water.
We're fucked. But if that's too much for you to handle, tune in to Rush. He'll tell you it's all a lot of hooey and the United States is the greatest nation that ever existed and the future is rosy.
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Originally Posted by GW in Ohio
