Face-Off with the Enemy (Part 2)
Kate Murphy took a deep breath and gently let it go. She leaned on the lectern with both hands and laced her fingers together. Almost every attendee in the audience was there to learn. And, as always, there would be a handful of naysayers there solely to disrupt the proceedings. She knew them well and knew their leadership. She smiled and reminded herself that, at one time, she would have been rallying right beside them.
“Once you leave here, go and have a look at who’s supporting your cause.Then, if it’s a foundation or society of some sort find out who is supporting them. And, if you come up with a name or two-see what they’re about. What’s their game, right?And then find out who stands to profit from your Cap and Trade schemes, the government, ummm excuse me, taxpayer subsidies of alternative energies, and who will be doling out the funds to help those who cannot afford to heat their homes or to help those who lose their jobs due to high energy costs?”
“Look at the roster of the United Nations IPCC, Environmental committees, Agenda 21 proponents. Do you know that the man that heads that panel holds a very prestigious doctoral degree? In economics! Nothing to do with climate, environment, or science. If you don’t believe me, in fact, don’t take anything I say at face value! Google, Yahoo, or Bing it!”
“Look up those those IPCC members and you’ll find barely 20 percent are degreed in anything relevant to climate science. These are the anointed archbishops of the climate change hierarchy!” Murphy was just getting started. She paused to gaze down at the notes on her podium. “Then there’s Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, leader of the World Wildlife Fund who said, quote ‘If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.’
“And what are we to make of Maurice Strong, U.N. environmental leader? I’m quoting here when he asks, ‘Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?’
And of course, we have dear Albert Gore, who has perhaps done more to deceive while enriching himself than any celebrity on the planet. He recently declared the recent earthquakes in Peru were a sign of coming earth disasters spawned by climate change. He did the same with floods, blizzards, forest fires, and hurricanes. Folks, can you see this is tantamount to linking someone somewhere on the planet dying every time someone flushes the commode? Ka pushhhh, dead, Kapushhh dead.” Many in the audience laughed at the imagery. “Y’know it gets to the point that if every friggin’ natural disaster is linked to human greed and corruption, there’s no such thing as an act of God.”
“Well, I care about humanity. I care about a woman in an African village who’s surviving on a daily-sometimes hourly basis-and she’s one of millions. And why is that? Because they haven’t the energy-they haven’t a Goddamned washing machine! Hell! They have to walk miles just to get a jug of clean water! And at this point, my friends tell me, “Shut up Kate” because they know I’m about to say this. It’s the bloody invention of the washing machine that’s liberated more women around the world than any of your so-called women’s rights organizations. And what’s it take to make this wonderful amazing liberating device work? That’s right! Cheap abundant dependable eee lec tri city!”
Her eyes narrowed and her head tilted so she looked over her horn rim glasses like a reproachful fifth grade teacher. Her voice was hard and gritty. “And there are some among us who extol this wretched existence-of living in mud huts as “sustainable” and exemplary???You, sitting there tapping on your laptops, driving your little electric cars, eating your organic granola, enjoying your latte’s, all comfy and cozy and frankly brain-dead to the fact,” she raised her right forefinger,”the fact that every goddamned aspect of your existence has been supported by cheap available fossil fuel energy.“
“And yet”, her hands opened palms up in a plaintive gesture, “you, who are of such privilege and abundance, would deny cheap abundant energy to a village woman in Africa? You’d say to parents of a child needing an emergency appendectomy, I’m sorry but the surgeons will need to rely on wind power or a sunny day to do the operation? You’d deny this wonderful abundance to future generations?“
“My God! What have we come to? What’s just about that?” She eyed the audience, pausing for maximum effect. Apart from a few coughs and whispers, the room was quiet.
“This is not a rhetorical question, my friends.” Her right hand clenched into a fist and hammered the air. “We are at a crossroads where we decide our fate–not just for tomorrow, the next day, the next year. We’re talking generations who will come to live either in freedom or under the heel of jolly green tyrants who are wielding environmental issues to gain entry into every aspect of our lives. I’m not talking about light bulbs or CAFTA mandates on gas mileage. This is about where you’ll live, what you’ll eat, where you work and for how much, how many children you can have, and on an on and on…it NEVER stops. EVER!”
Murphy took a deep breath and sighed, her voice changed from strident to plaintive.
“And, my friends, this may be our last chance to choose freely. Next time, it might well be we’re choosing at the point of a gun. And, tell me…what kind of bloody choice is that?”
She let it sink in and then resumed in a soft reasoning tone.
“You know, it’s a fact that the nations that make advances economically become the better stewards of their environment? They pollute less and less as their prosperity increases. Do you know that?” She leaned forward saying in an intimate stage whisper, “Look I’m not asking that you change your ideology, I’m just trying to get you to consider the ramifications. And look to who’s backing you. What’s their game, eh?”
Bryan didn’t need to hear any more of this infuriating nonsense. Most of the crowd around him were dupes. A bunch of frigging tea-baggers. Like that jar headed dolt sitting in front of them. How could these people, even these backward conservative neanderthals, how could they deny all the evidence of earth’s man made demise. He was shocked, not much surprised, but shocked.
Maybe, he thought, these folks can be collected and blasted off to some other planet where they’d have their free markets, poison their own air and water, destroy their environment–but not mine!
The woman was just a shill for the power companies, the sleazy right wing politicians, and big oil. Obviously coal and gas too. Her rant at the lectern proved it all the more. He knew that if he dug deep there’d be be all kinds of dirty money funneling into Kate Murphy’s bank accounts. She’s an industry whore just like all the other so-called scientists and nay sayers. Anything for a buck, right? That would be where he’d go with this write-up. Something like–”KATE MURPHY: Industry’s Darling Deceiver”
He left the conference hall early and, checking his smart phone, saw it was nearly 4:30. Good and early. So, he decided to head home via the Blue Line Metro. He’d get there, eat some organic fruit, and write a little blurb on Kate Murphy’s misguided and dangerous ravings sponsored by the craven capitalists of an earth-devouring industry.