[image: legal planner]
The Day We Boiled Ourselves to Frog Heaven
“democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
--Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
To paraphrase Churchill, “the scientific method is the worst pathway to knowledge, except for all those other forms that have been tried.” With that brief introduction scientists and the scientific method have been warning us for decades that fossil fuels have outlived their usefulness. Coal and oil executives and those who vote with them in Congress disagree. So, who and what are you going to believe: melting icecaps, rising ocean levels, hotter summers and colder winters, increases in floods, more hurricanes, and temperature changes that are measurable by any third-grade student? —or, all those wealthy oil and coal executives and their legislative puppets whose money flows depend on heating up the world?
Neither science nor the scientific method need my endorsement. Just compare and contrast (a logical step in testing ideas) the world of today to that of 200 years ago. Today, landing on the moon is not routine, but we know it is do-able. Flying from New York to London is routine. Even driving in air-conditioned comfort is within the budgets of almost everyone. And by the way, who would want to try driving from Texas to California in the summer without air-conditioning? And there are also television, antibiotics, satellites, GPS, world-wide communication systems, better food, fuels, health care, housing, and transportation systems available to most inhabitants of our planet. None is perfect, and their equitable distribution is lousy, but not many of us would want to return to those glorious days of yesteryear when a horse, a plow, and a scrub board were on the cutting edge of most of our needs.
Still, what can I say about those who defend coal mining and oil drilling against the power of logic, evidence, and common sense that hasn’t already been said by our intrepid group of third grade decision makers? Only this: We are long past the day of argumentation, of presenting more and more evidence, and of pleading. We need to accelerate our transition from fossil fuels to wind, and solar, and other renewable, non-polluting energy sources before we find that we are all frogs in hot water, unable to escape the destiny imposed on us by the greed of a few.
Next question: Would our world be as beautiful if there were no one here to see, hear, touch, feel, and smell the flowers?
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I can understand why much of the population goes along with who they think the leaders of our society are, like CEOs and politicians who are bribed into acting in ways that benefit CEOs of large corporations that have advertising campaign making them look good.
You remember Ronald Reagan and General Electric Theater. I recall they had a slogan: Progress Is Our Most Important Product. Some time ago, GE abandoned that slogan. Sometimes progress has to be reversed or drastically changed. Such is the case with fossil fuels.
To understand what it's really about, all one has to do is read an old book, Night Comes to the Cumberlands, describing how big money from New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania raped and destroyed the landscape and livelihood of Kentucky and West Virginia. It is still happening with the president promising for people of West Virginia that they can become coal miners again.
Ron