We must face the unpleasant and painful truth about what is happening to the planet and our lives. You may think that the climate catastrophe facing humankind is global warming, but in fact there are at least three catastrophes behind the climate change disaster.
The first one is the effect of CO2, nitrous oxide and methane that are covering the planet like a blanket and locking in the heat of the sun. It is like putting the planet in a glass-covered greenhouse. The heat is causing devastating droughts, leaving millions of people without food. This is causing massive migration of hungry populations from the South to the North. The earth and forests are burning. In Russia, Europe, the United States and Australia, enormous forest fires destroy all before them.
The oceans filled with plastic are heating up, reducing fish stocks, while the water that evaporates into clouds brings massive rainstorms that overwhelm dams and rivers causing floods of biblical proportions. There are few forests left because of massive deforestation in the Amazon and parts of Asia and Europe. Forests absorb CO2 and hold excessive rainwater. Animals are dead from drought or floods and landslides are burying villages. Rising sea levels and wind-driven tides due to the melting of the Arctic ice add to the destruction. We see this on our television screens already and there is much more to come.
The second catastrophe is the corrupt politicians in cahoots with money moguls of giant multinational corporations that get them elected to office. They support the oil, gas and coal industries and allow global warming to happen by doing little or nothing to mitigate the gasses or curb the burning of fossil fuels.
These politicians work with scheming tycoons who lobby for laws that give them billions in subsidies to promote the oil and coal industries. The amount of taxpayer money going to US corporations adds up to US$20 billion [$155 billion] annually. From that, 20 per cent is for the coal industry and 80 per cent for oil and natural gas companies.
The EU spends US$55 billion [$427 billion] annually in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. In the US, approximately US$2.1 trillion [$16.3 trillion] was earned by the oil and gas industries in 2021, according to The Environmental and Energy Study Institute [https://bit.ly/3k3TAQf].
The politicians delay legislation to switch from coal and oil to renewable energy and block laws that mandate electric cars. However in public, they hypocritically lie and promise to end subsidies and change to renewables. The G7 nations made such a pledge recently, but will they do it? Since the year 2000, coal-burning plant capacity has increased by 100 per cent, led by China and India. There are 80 nations using coal plants to generate electricity; most get government support. Australia will continue burning coal and selling it abroad. More coal plants are being built in many countries.
The promises that will be made at the COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, might just be empty promises. As the 18-year old environmental activist, Greta Thunberg says, it is just Blah Blah Blah.
The Philippines is coal-dependent with as many as 28 coal-fired power plants currently operating throughout the country, with a total installed capacity of 9.88 gigawatts. The energy department has approved another 22 coal plants. The electricity to be generated will be 53 per cent by 2030. Environmental groups are protesting these plans. Philippine corporations have to get into a bed of bribery with high government officials to get approval for the energy coal projects.
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
https://www.Facebook.com/CFM-Gifted-to-give-101039001847033
Geothermal and hydro-power from dams make up the other source of energy. The present government wants to give full foreign ownership of new geothermal plants to foreign companies from Russia and China but local opposition is growing. However, the solar and wind sector is almost non-existent. The Philippine government will have no good news for the COP26 conference.
Global warming continues hotter than ever as a result. Studies show that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, not less, than in 2020. To keep the global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees or less and avoid disasters, the earth needs a reduction in greenhouse gases of 55 per cent and so far, the pledges of 120 nations add up to only 7.5 per cent.
The promises and pledges to cut emissions would need to increase seven times to save the planet from the point of no return by 2030. Politicians and corporations are successfully persuading the public with lies and fake news that their pledges and promises are true. The facts speak otherwise. Joe Biden, the US president, seems more honest. He is proposing strong legislation to support industry to change to renewable energy—wind and solar—not promises.
We see a case in point in the US, where Senator Manchin has blocked the Biden administration’s ambitious legislation to change to renewable energy production and impose fines on those industries that release methane into the atmosphere. Manchin’s vote for Biden’s legislation is vital. He is holding back because the coal industry in his state of West Virginia gets big subsidies and he himself earns US$500,000 [$3.8 million] a year from his personal investment in coal.
The third catastrophe is the ignorance, blindness and apathy and indifference of the public worldwide to the truth of climate change. Many stupidly allow it to happen without protest or demanding to know how and why.
This indifference allows multinational corporations like [Meta-owned] Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as Google, the telecommunication companies and the fossil fuel corporations to rise to great power.
Their platforms control the data, the news feeds and distort and manipulate the public. The message of COP26 will be controlled by them and they can continue to perpetuate their lies that there is no real danger to the planet that they cannot control. They will continue to rake in trillions of dollars in profit and rip off the people. How do they do it?
As the famous Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed for opposing Hitler said, the general public can be very stupid. They give up their independence and do not know it but each person talks “…with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him, he is under a spell, blinded, misused and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool…”
So it seems in the Philippines and much of the world today as we travel towards climate catastrophe carried on the floodwaters of ignorance where too many people are mindless tools of the corporate powers that rule our consumer-dominated lives.
Father Shay Cullen
shaycullen@gmail.com
www.preda.org
