Climate change is no art show

Rick Salutin hasn’t understood, or accepted, the venality or stupidity of the principals of the oil industry. Climate change is not an art show, it is a s--t show.

The ultimate outcome of the use of fossil fuels was recognized by scientists nearly 200 years ago. By around 1980, we were seeing very well-developed models that were providing detailed descriptions of what would happen if we continued to increase the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere exponentially. And, of course, some evidence of the changes in mean temperature and the weather.

But the oil industry, with full knowledge of the science, fired the bringers of bad news and hired the advertising giants to delude the public, instead of looking after their economic future in a world of climate change. The CEOs have recently misled the U.S. Congress about it.

The planet will always survive, but the human species may not if government fails to regain control.

Tom McElroy, professor emeritus, York University