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Judge Coney Barrett at her inauguration (l.), President Donald Trump, Judge Clarence Thomas (r.): Judgment in the interest of the oil and coal industry
Photo: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
How would you react if I told you that there is a powerful, decentralized global conspiracy that has been working towards the downfall of human civilization for decades?
A bit far fetched?
At least exaggerated?
Now he's totally freaking out?
Unfortunately, that's really how it is.
This week this global, decentralized but extremely effective conspiracy in the US showed its face more clearly than it usually does.
The cards are on the table.
But humanity does not react.
So far.
"Scary," writes the judge
In the USA it became clear what the so-called conservatives there, who in reality are primarily compliant henchmen of the US oil, gas and coal industry, have been working towards for many years: namely the possibility of presenting their planet-destroying and thus civilization-destroying business models to as many people as possible protect restriction.
Of course, it is about the judgment of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the USA, which wants to make it much more difficult for the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in the USA.
The defeated judge Elena Kagan put it like this in her dissenting opinion shared by two colleagues: »The court appoints itself – instead of the congress or the specialist authority – as the decision-maker in matters of climate policy.
I can't think of many things that I find scarier.” That's what it really says, in an official court document.
more on the subject
Fighting Joe Biden: How the Republicans Became the Party of the Extremists An essay by Christoph Scheuermann
Further decisions on climate policy are pending before US courts.
It will go on like this, that is perfectly clear.
The oil and coal barons of the USA, who have been working towards this situation for years with donations, strategies and countless detailed activities, have been victorious for the time being.
The Kulturkampf verdicts of the court that have already been passed and are still to be expected – about openly carrying guns, for example, about abortion rights – are primarily exhibits for the massively polarized electorate, to whom we owe this new, almost unlimited power.
Anyone who scolds about "Woke" joins in
The Republicans have evolved into a far-right party, indifferent to facts and even US democracy itself.
Many will suffer from this: women, the sick, the poor, all non-whites, homosexuals, trans people and so on.
But in truth all of this is primarily marketing, advertising messages to the white, reactionary section of the population who fear for their privileges.
Their economic and health decline - in no other industrialized nation is life expectancy as low as in the USA - is rewarded with the servicing of resentments.
Every time someone whines about the bad "clouds," they're playing this propaganda game in the service of oil, coal, and money.
Symptomatic: Here, too, Vladimir Putin and the Republicans are pulling in the same direction.
The Christian fundamentalists get their instruments of repression, the gun fanatics get their assault rifles.
And, if things go badly, Republicans will soon have the opportunity to legally ignore election results.
That would make the coup perfect, so to speak.
more on the subject
US law professor on the Supreme Court's shift to the right: »It doesn't look as if this court fears any consequences« An interview by Marc Pitzke, New York
But the oil and coal industries will really benefit from all of this.
And other super-rich, to whom Donald Trump is known to have given a huge tax gift.
Strategically much more important, however, were all the judges that he heaved into office in no time at all, over 200 in number.
The same donors here as there
The legal strategy of the fossil industries affects not only the Supreme Court of the USA, but also various other courts.
In the course of time, people have been installed in all places that matter at the crucial moment, who then demand or make judgments that benefit their own business model, which is leading humanity to the abyss.
The — Republican, coal industry — plaintiffs in the now-ruled West Virginia vs. EPA case often have “the same donors behind the effort to bring five Republicans to court — John G. Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett,” as the New York Times reports.
Coney Barrett, who was last appointed by Trump, is a religious fanatic whose father worked as a lawyer for Shell.
Dirty games, dirty business
Trump has appointed three of the six who have now voted for the fossil industries.
One only because the Republicans previously blocked an upcoming nomination under Barack Obama until it was too late.
Republicans have been playing very dirty games for many years.
But it's also about dirty business.
In all of this, it's important to remember that the fossil industries have known, for decades, that the greenhouse gases produced by their products and practices continue to heat the planet, which is already causing constant disasters.
And that for decades they were initially very successful in making this fact appear dubious or even false, with "think tanks", "foundations", "studies", bought scientists, campaigns, corruption.
more on the subject
US Judge Clarence Thomas: The Man Behind America's Shift to the RightBy Marc Pitzke, New York
Don't believe me, believe UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who is not suspected of self-serving eco-lobbyism:
“We seem trapped in a world where fossil fuel producers and financiers have a stranglehold on humanity. For decades, the fossil fuel industry has invested heavily in pseudoscience and public relations, using a false narrative to downplay its responsibility for climate change and undermine ambitious climate policies. They used exactly the same scandalous tactics that the tobacco industry had used decades before."
That's what Guterres said on June 17, 2022 at a virtual climate summit of major industrialized nations.
The big picture includes many pieces of the puzzle, all only seemingly unconnected, all part of a now clear, frightening picture:
The enthusiasm of Western financial markets for the IPOs of Russian oil and gas companies.
The shameless lobbying of German politicians from the CDU/CSU, SPD and FDP for coal and oil companies, while at the same time deliberately destroying a domestic renewable energy industry that is just gaining strength.
The oil and gas wars.
Unwavering loyalty to abusive autocracies like Saudi Arabia, even after embarrassing incidents like the assassination and dismemberment of a Washington Post columnist.
Globally looking the other way in the face of catastrophic environmental destruction, which is triggered by oil production in Nigeria and other countries.
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Christian Stoecker
We are the experiment
Publisher: Karl Blessing
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Karl Blessing
Number of pages: 384
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The list could be continued almost indefinitely, but the core always remains the same: As Guterres says, the producers of CO₂ have a stranglehold on the world.
There is a tremendous correlation between the promotion and defense of fossil fuels and activities that are absolutely unquestionably bad, destructive.
We already had the technologies to free ourselves from this stranglehold.
Current example: This study, which calculates how Germany could become independent of Russian gas by winter.
Success of decades of effort
The solutions are there.
The fact that we are still not using them on a large scale is a result of decades of strategic work.
In the USA, in Europe, in Russia, Australia, India, China.
All of this probably still sounds dramatizing and exaggerated to you.
That it does so is another sign of how effective fossil propagandists have been at work in recent decades.
The forum for this column will once again be overflowing with pseudo-arguments that have been ruminated on from a pool that has been cultivated for decades.
It has long been clear that the fossil industries are enemies of mankind.
They have acquired strategies, allies and henchmen in order to be able to go on like this for as long as possible.
This, of course, is self-destructive, because the children of oil and coal executives and their shareholders will also have to live on a hotter, unstable, partially uninhabitable planet.
But those who earn money by hurtling down the abyss seem to have particularly well-developed cognitive defense mechanisms that they themselves have had professionals use for so long.
It's a global suicide pact, as John Kerry once put it.
The lords of the fossil can get away with just about anything
Now they don't even have to lie: Although the vast majority of people in most industrialized nations have understood that the man-made climate crisis is real, the fossil lords continue to get away with almost anything.
They choose their own judges, they put compliant politicians in office, they send their delegates to talk shows and research institutions, to think tanks, editorial offices and advisory bodies.
You still listen to them.
The message is no longer "none of this is true", it is "but we also have rights" or, if appropriate, softer: "At the moment we unfortunately have to continue like this, but we'll stop doing it soon, really, we have understood.« But they don't change anything in their behavior, on the contrary: Many of their strategies are only really paying off now.
The Supreme Court decision shows this once again.
The softening of the commitment to an immediate exit from fossil investments at the G7 summit - operated by the German Chancellor!
– is another example of the same fateful phenomenon.
Like a junkie or an alcoholic.
Just one shot, one more shot, one!
And the dealer smiles kindly and understandingly.
The UN Secretary-General is right: »Investors continue to promote fossil fuels, governments continue to distribute billions in subsidies for coal, oil and gas - a good eleven million dollars a minute.
For the health of our societies and that of the planet, we must end our addiction to fossil fuels.
Now."