One Day...

One day, we will look back on the lies told by Big Sugar, Big Tobacco, Big Polluters, Climate Science Deniers, and others, and we will remember when we held them all accountable. We will remember as they laughed while we found them guilty, assuming that The Public was a toothless tiger, and we will remember how they laughed as we held them responsible for the suffering and death of millions. We will remember as they chuckled and winked amongst themselves as we passed judgement, and we will remember as their laughter turned to silence as they noticed the stony glances of those whom they deluded and the families of others who suffered or perished because of The Lies.

One day, we will remember them as they were trundled off to prisons where they were forced to atone for their crimes and misdemeanors and we will remember them as they weakly mumbled their apologies for the manslaughter, perhaps even murder, that they committed in the name of their god, Profit. 

We are a trusting lot, although we generally find untrustworthy the cynics who are incapable of the belief in trust. But we're also a lot who demand justice, especially for lies which endanger our families and our fellows. And in our demands for justice, we can be wrathful, accepting nothing short of the full measure dealt to those we love or loved by those guilty of this malice. 

One day, we will remember that we could, no, we will remember that we SHOULD, see justice done so that others need not suffer; so those who have suffered will be avenged; so those who conspire against us will have their days of remembrance, also. 

Response to post on NASA's Google+ page

You're absolutely right, (redacted) - it is a symptom of a far larger problem and no amount of head-in-the-sand ignorance is going to make it stop or go away.

A lot of climate-deniers claim that global warming is part of a natural cycle or that we can't do anything about it, but here's my take: If global warming was a car headed off a cliff and we were the passengers, rather than let the car go off the cliff while we sit around arguing about whether it's a cliff or whether the 1000' foot fall will kill us, we'd grab the wheel and try to steer the car back on the road. 

To those who say that it's too big a problem to fix, I say to you "ozone hole". In the 1970s, scientists began to warn us of the dangers that a depleted atmospheric ozone layer would pose to our environment. Over the ensuing years, governments worked to solve the problem of chlorofluorocarbon production and elimination culminating in 1987's Montreal Protocol. Since then, CFCs have been on the decline in the atmosphere and it is expected that the ozone layer will be repaired within 50 years.

So we can solve a global environmental problem if we all work together to do it. We have proof of that. Alternately, we can sit on our hands and let those who contribute most to the problem of greenhouse gases lead the debate rather than letting rational science lead us to a solution, and do so before it's too late.