Risking Civilization for Profit, Ideology and Ego

There are different types of climate deniers. There are those who have been hoodwinked by "fake facts" and "opinions" into believing it is all a liberal plot to do something terrible to them and their freedoms. "The next thing is they will take our guns!" I ran into one of these very sincere people at a campaign event I attended about five years ago. This person was asking me about what I believed about climate change and she went on to say, "You know they use computers to come up with their information" — meaning climate science. Yes, yes, those evil computers are involved.

I don't have as big an issue with these people as I do the ones addressed in this op-ed, The Depravity of Climate-Change Denial. These people and organizations are the real culprits, who without their funding, the messaging by climate deniers would be much less effective. Of the three items mentioned in the subtitle, I think it is really all about the money. I also thought it interesting that the author called these people's actions "sin."

For those of you of a religious bent, without going into the entire spectrum of sin, there are two types of sin, sins of omission and sins of commission. The sin of commission is deliberate, e.g., a man cheating on his spouse, etc. The person knows it is wrong but chooses to act in an immoral way anyway. The sin that this latter group of people looking to profit from an anti-climate change stance are the ones acting in an amoral manner. They don't give a hoot about tomorrow or the earth that their descendants will live in. Theirs are sins of commission. They know what they are doing and don't care. 

Claire Rubin shared the link above.