The lecture reprinted below, “Mediocre Careerism, Respectability Politics, and Bad Behavior by Senior Scientists Erode Global Climate Leadership,” was given last week at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Sarah Myhre‘s session title was titled “Is environmental science serving or failing society?” Her remarks follow without comment.
…“… effective action on climate change has been impeded for 30 years because of the political assassination and anti-democratic campaigns (a form of extortion, lies, intimidation, bribery, and toadery) waged by ExxonMobil, Shell, British Petroleum and other fossil fuel companies…. Their transactions of power are so damaging and genocidal….”
“Here we find the genocidal systems of white supremacy, fascism, nationalism, colonialism, neoliberalism, and capitalism. Here we find the billionaires, the oligarchs, the war mongers, the predators, the enablers.
“Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an ‘existential threat’ to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real…. And as I watched the deniers make their arguments [against Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade], I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.” (Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2009)
“Republican climate denial is even scarier than Trumpism.” (Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2019)
A full decade apart, Paul Krugman is all-in with climate hyperbole and angst. Joe Romm might have thrown in the towel at Climate Progress, but Krugman is flaming in the New York Times.
Talk about riding the wrong horse.…
“The major international energy issue should not be climate change. It should be, per Guillermo M. Yeatts, country-by-country privatization of subsurface mineral rights to benefit the mass of surface owners and would-be entrepreneurs.”
He was a true friend of private property, free markets, the rule of law, and goodwill for all. He was a successful entrepreneur in the US and Latin America. He was a thinker and doer, building up an intellectual case for public policy reform and acting on it. And for a lot of us, he was a good friend. In my case, he introduced my work to Latin America.
Guillermo M. Yeatts died a year ago just short of his 81st birthday. Born in Buenos Aires, he studied in America and successively rose in business in the US and in Argentina (see Appendix A).…