Open Up The Gnarly Gates

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is featuring a series of pretty upbeat ads showing how good the tat sands business is for the whole country, that, dadgummit, they fuel all our activities, and besides, they ensure that people all over the country benefit from jobs in manufacturing and transportation, not to mention spin-off jobs and what a wonderful world it is. You can see this all for yourself at

http://www.capp.ca/Pages/default.aspx

On the other hand, there is the statement issued, today, I think, by some egghead scientists, any one of whom has more credibility in the cuticle of the nail of his left pinky than the whole phalanx of oil patch shills. You can see it here:

http://mahb.stanford.edu/consensus-statement-from-global-scientists/

I can give you the short version, but I recommend you check out the statement and peruse the rather lengthy list of those who’ve signed on in support of the document: it basically tells us what some of the more forward-thinking writers have said for decades, that there are too many of us, that our patterns of consumption are unsupportable, that our living space is already seriously toxic, that we’ve managed to wipe out a huge swath of species, and that we’re staring down our own demise due to accelerated climate change. Of course, a lot of us are staring at our own demise with a blindfold securely covering whatever we normally use to see, and it comes as no surprise that a big part of the blindness is brought on by the smokescreen of don’t-worry-be-happy advertising thrown up by the same people who benefit short term from the destruction they intend to continue wreaking. the same people who have bought, on the cheap, governments who participate fully in the fraud that will kill us all. All parties on that side of the “equation” (a formula which, in this case, represents no equilibrium at all), when caught in a situation where the facts belie what they say, make up their own facts as though they alone can defy the laws of physics, and when they are caught in an outright fiction, their strategy is most often, to lie some more. It’s sad in a way that those who vote for Harper, Wall, Redford, Clark, et al, have so little idea of their share of responsibility for recreating a new version of the middle ages, but at least it will be short-lived as the rulers die in the same cataclysm that will envelope us all.