Part 1 ~ The Importance of Truth in the Fight Against Climate Change
Barak Obama observed that “one of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we do not share a common baseline of facts”. I would further this and contend that, when the current catastrophic state of the climate is considered, the challenge is not just to our democracy, but to humanity.
The individuals and companies, whose businesses are built on releasing greenhouse gases, are the very people who have the most power, money and worst of all, influence. Their oil money has bought them power and influence in the form of owning and/or controlling governments and media companies(Ellis, 2017). Therefore, these companies have control over the information that the general population is given(The Climate Reality Project, 2019). The only chance of a hope in what-is-increasingly-seeming-like hell (when we look at the Australian/Amazonian/Indonesian wildfires) is if the general public is sufficiently educated on the reality of global warming. If we are not equipped with the facts, we are not equipped to act.
While reading the following sub-chapters about the loss of truth, trust and meaning in our culture, it is important to keep in mind that these notions - of truth, trust and meaning - are the foundations on which our fight against global warming is built.