David Shows His Cynicism

Well, David Horsey has a cynical side.  His latest column certainly matches my mood of late, so I can't really blame him.  Unfortunately, I can't cheer him up either. 

In the movies, when humanity is faced with imminent doom, whether from a massive asteroid or an invasion of space monsters, the people of the world forget their differences, band together and save themselves. In the real world, such unanimity of purpose is far more rare. When it came time to help their fellow Americans whose lives were upended by Sandy, quite a few members of Congress balked, delayed and refused to let go of their compulsive quest to scale back government spending. Ideology trumped compassion. ...

If a gigantic asteroid were barreling toward impact with our planet, you can bet there would be at least a few members of Congress who would insist on leaving it alone, either because they would see it as a warning shot from the Almighty or because a mining company with a savvy team of lobbyists had laid claim to the big rock. Two minutes before Armageddon, somebody will still be trying to figure out how to make a quick buck off of it and he’ll have friends in Congress insisting that it’s the American way.

Ouch!

But, oh, so true.  As Horsey notes in the rest of the column, we are  seeing that play out in the climate change arena.  We should have been doing something a decade ago at least, but even now, when we are seeing the dramatic storms, the crippling droughts, the huge swings in temperatures, the climate change deniers, fueled by the dollars from the oil, gas, and coal companies have our congress critters on both sides of the aisle looking the other way.  Money today, even if (or especially because) catastrophe tomorrow.

We are so screwed.