by Karen Laslo
guest commentary
For years, environmental activists have been warning us about the most dire existential crisis of our lives: Climate Change. But despite their best efforts, very little has changed as people on all levels continue to behave as if there is no crisis, including many of the elected officials that we depend on for leadership and protection.
As a result of this inaction, all creatures, human and non-human, on this beautiful planet we call Earth, our only home, are in imminent peril of extinction.
And now, another deadly crisis has come upon us: The (Trump’s) Covid-19 pandemic. Trump, who is supposed to be our nation’s leader, made no plans to control the virus. His lies and absolute refusal to acknowledge the reality of how dangerous the virus would become if left unchecked made it much worse.
But while communities of desperate people across the country (and around the world) were locked down, losing their jobs, their local economies annihilated and thousands of people dying, Trump protected his big campaign contributors in the oil and gas industry with a gift of over $700 billion from the Paycheck Protection Program, a plan that was supposed to help the American people. The fossil fuel companies got money; we got sick.
Ironically, the cruel and greedy fossil fuel industry is contributing to the eventual demise of its own existence. For Trump and his oil and gas company buddies, “the end of oil” pandemic is upon them.
Check out this short segment of Democracy Now! titled “The End of Oil.”
It’ll blow your mind.