For the past decade, climate change has devastated the continental United States. The west has suffered massive fire storms that destroyed millions of acres of farmland and thousands of homes. Record-breaking heat combined with severe drought are likely symptoms of climate change (unless you only believe in bad luck.) The north has been cursed with excessive snowfall in the coldest winters on record. (But it could be bad luck.) The Mississippi is drying up – Lake Mead is falling, cutting the hydroelectric production of Hoover Dam by half. (Probably bad luck.) Many southern states have unprecedented flooding.

Should the Republicans take control of Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024, you can be assured that climate change will be at the top of their list of things to ignore. “Drill, Baby, Drill” will be their mantra. Why in the face of repeated cataclysms of nature reacting to fossil-fuel contamination would conservatives passionately embrace petrol and coal?

Here’s the thing – conservatism is not now, and never has been, and never will be, a grassroots movement. Their philosophy is the extension of the philosophy of kings, emperors, and pharaohs to justify and perpetuate the rule of the few over the many to enrich the aristocracy. At the end of 2022, big oil is posting record quarterly profits of nearly 60 billion dollars. They need a consumer base who will not switch to less destructive energy sources so they imbue the consumption of fossil fuel with an almost religious mystique for the customer at the pump and big oil engages in legal bribery at the political level.

Functionally, it’s the same scam that was used to defend the slave trade. A very small number of plantations had the vast majority of slaves. Slavery in the US was the key to obscene wealth in the South – there were no self-made millionaires in the slave states. To keep a small number of aristocrats filthy rich, the mystique of slavery was justified from the pulpit, the poor white man became a co-conspirator willing to die for a way of life that provided no benefits to him. The trade itself was lucrative and baked into the aristocracy of England and the Deep South. (The Church of England was invested in the trade – their largest slave ship was called, “The Jesus.”)

Hard historical facts have not survived but I suspect the Pyramids were built on the same swindle. Slaves were worked to death to construct elaborate tombs and the non-slaves who provided the wealth for the aristocracy were convinced from their earliest education that it was their privilege and religious obligation to serve the pharaohs.

Look at climate change and the fraud employed to justify adding more pollution to fuel the fire of climate change, and the motive is simply greed. The manipulation of the masses to defend the aristocracy is ancient. The addition of a religious component, a sacred tradition, to blind the victim to his role in his own subjugation works best when everyone participates and the ‘heresy’ of speaking the truth is suppressed.

What is this ‘truth’? There is no divinely-appointed aristocracy called by God to rule the common people and secure for themselves the wealth created by the masses. No aristocrat put oil in the ground or the sun in the sky. They don’t direct the winds or the tides. They don’t make crops grow or teach chickens to lay eggs. All we have to do is identify and reject the con and outlaw the mechanisms the aristocrats use to divert the wealth of the planet (in the natural resources) and the wealth created by the labor of people. These schemes are NOT natural laws – they are not carved on sacred tablets. They are cunning tricks, illusions. Only with our passionate cooperation and support can they enrich themselves with the wealth we common people create and own.

For the first time, perhaps, all civilization is at risk. How severe climate change will become can’t be calculated exactly. No one knows how and where food production will be interrupted or where storms will level entire cities. The frequency and severity of hurricanes and tornadoes, drought and wildfires, can only be guessed. The failure to address climate change threatens us all.