The earth gets hotter, as rich nations continue their coal, oil and gas burning spree, while those who urge a course correction get…thrown into prison. The latest casualty of a judiciary dedicated to preserving ecocidal plutocracy is Extinction Rebellion’s Roger Hallam, sentenced to five years in jail in the U.K. for his efforts to stop the corporate insanity defiling the planet. You may think “defiling” is a strong word. But with a heat index of 144 degrees Fahrenheit in Dubai July 16, multiple heat domes baking enormous swaths of the globe this month at record-smashing temperatures for record-smashing lengths of time, and the four hottest days IN A ROW ever recorded in July, you might want to thank Hallam for attempting to arrest this calamity. But if you do, be prepared for the violent, most rapacious aristo-oligarchs in human history – especially those peopling the top echelons of giant oil corporations – to try to shut you up.
Those moneyed bigwigs have been fiendishly effective when it comes to tarring the climate movement and climate science as junk. It seems the hotter the planet becomes, the more undeniable the evidence of our senses and statistics, the more these fantastically wealthy polluters double down on their planetary pyromania. They do not care what happens to the next generation and suffer from the delusion that they will be immune to the climate fiasco unfolding now. So they go on pooh-poohing extreme weather and dangerous heat and leading the best congress their money can buy by the nose.
Back to Hallam. His crime? In his own words: “Giving a talk on civil disobedience as an effective evidence-based method for stopping the elite from putting enough carbon in the atmosphere to send us to extinction.” Hallam recounts in his recent posts that when, during his trial, he described the climate apocalypse we face – “floods, wildfires, mass heat deaths” – the judge muzzled him. “He sent out the jury and threatened to arrest me if I didn’t stop.” Hallam kept talking. The jury was kept out of the courtroom.
The accused cited the Dutch Supreme Court ruling “that all governments have a legal obligation to prevent the emissions of greenhouse gases.” When the jury returned, Hallam referred to case law, but the judge ordered the jurors to disregard him, even as he highlighted “the objective danger I’ve experienced as a farmer unable to grow food.” Indeed, some experts argue that by the end of the century, the much warmer earth will be unsuitable for growing wheat. So I guess those alive then will have to get their carbs from something other than bread.
Things are bad for this planet, our only home. In the past two years, global temps have shot way up, past scientific predictions, while ocean heat has blasted through all recorded precedents.
According to the New York Times April 10, “the ocean has now broken temperature records every day for more than a year.” This kills marine life, causes coral bleaching and impacts weather, already severely eccentric and out of kilter from atmospheric warming. “Biblical flooding, scorching heat, collapsing grid systems, animals crumbling, waters rising, crops wilting, economy on the brink and millions displaced,” wrote Robert Hunziker in CounterPunch June 21. “Welcome to the future of climate change…Pakistan.” To prevent that future from spreading to other parts of the globe, we must stop burning fossil fuels, pronto.
This article cites an interview from Inside Climate News June 8, entitled “As Temperatures in Pakistan Top 120 Degrees, There’s Nowhere to Run.” This is something no nation, no leader wants to invite. Right, Donald “I Dig Coal” Trump? We can assume the Dems are somewhat on board (vide: Kamala “Prosecuted Polluters” Harris who has specifically addressed this matter of our collective fate), but the GOP is not.
Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest book is Busybody. She can be
reached at her website.
Source: CounterPunch
