Yes

by David Nuttle

Created on: August 01, 2008   Last Updated: May 19, 2011

Our next President will follow the Bush "era" with its policies of improperly altering scientific documents to hide solid proof of global warming. The reality was that all those with the most "political payola" payments (significant campaign contributions) were able to influence the White House and Congress to effectively ignore global warming. Such political action helped the major polluters continue high levels of global pollution to dramatically increase their profits. Unless this type of corruption is ended, there is not much any President can do to mitigate global warming. A related problem is all the propaganda about global warming really being a hoax. The next President needs to make certain that we all get the scientific facts, without modification for political purposes, while acting to counter false information and propaganda about global warming.

To effectively deal with climate change there are many related issues out next President must be prepared to solve. In the area of diversity/biodiversity, our planet is experiencing the loss of numerous plant and animal species. Increased shortages of water, as well as shortages of food, feed, and habitat contribute to such losses. Desertification and deforestation are becoming increasing problems, and over 1 (one) billion people continue to cut trees and scrubs to make the charcoal they need for cooking and heating. Given the fact that global populations tend to increase, real solutions have been difficult to obtain. We have failed to educate people on the critical need for biodiversity as the underpinning of terrestrial ecosystems. Entire forests are being destroyed for timber or alternative uses of the land. Many plant species are being eliminated before we even discover their real value. Animals are killed in ever increasing numbers to provide exotic animal products, or for sport. In some cases the killing has no known reason, as in the case of 53 sea lions recently murdered on Pinta Island (in the Galapagos Islands).

Wealthy and polically powerful petroleum and coal companies will continue to fight for the right to produce, market, and burn large quantities of fossil fuels that contribute to the greenhouse gas problem, a major part of global warming. By hiring hundreds of lobbyists, and paying millions of dollars in annual "political payola", the petroleum industry has effectively owned the White House and Congress. In 2008, Congress only voted token support for "green" or alternative energy programs while voting $29 billion in subsidies for the petroleum companies making profits at historically high levels. Millions of acreas of land have already been leased to the petroleum companies at mineral lease rates that are pennies on the dollar. The push to give the petroleum companies more mineral leases in Alaska, and for U.S. coastal waters, is little more than a land grab at "bargain basement" prices. One of my sources, at a major petroleum company, tells me that $4 per gallon gasoline prices were planned and programmed (in advance) to achieve public support for such a land grab. Moreover, petroleum companies wanted the public to accept the idea that more drilling is a better energy solution than alternative energy.

On a global basis, many people have observed that the U.S. has effectively ignored the genocide in Darfur, just as we had (or have) ignored the genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, Laos, and Vietnam. In Laos, we have allowed the communist government to hunt our former Hmong allies like wild animals. Many Hmong had fought and died to support U.S. efforts during the Vietnam War. At the same time, the U.S. ignored the sustained Vietnamese communist campaign of extreme genocide undertaken against the Montagnard of Vietnam. Like the Hmong, the Montagnard lost thousands of their people in the fight to support U.S. causes during the Vietnam War. Our global public sees that the U.S. has not done many of the things that it should have done in the name of humanity, and/or in support of those who sacrificed greatly for us. At the same time, they see that the U.S. invaded Iraq using a "fabricated" excuse of being seriously threatened by mass weapons of destruction. When our global audience is told that the U.S. really invaded Iraq for the oil (petroleum), and this appears to be a true statement as far as most people are concerned.

U.S. policy makers have been unwilling to undertake solutions that could solve the global warming problem, because they believe such measures could damage our economy. Our next President needs to realize that finding effective solutions to global warming may actually create jobs, and greatly improve our economy. We do not think so now because most of us have allowed the petroleum companies to tell us what to think. However, the petroleum monopoly is beginning to fracture. T. Boone Pickens, a petroleum billionaire is now saying that our salvation will be in the form of alternative energy rather than in more drilling. Let us all hope that our next President will also break away from past influences of petroleum companies only interested in their own profits.

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