Back to Prinicples

I hope you enjoyed the last two climate columns by scientist Nicola Philpott and Physician Mark Cannon. I am grateful that they took the time from their daily tasks to share their insights.

It was my plan to research, and share with you, the many ways climate change can be slowed and, hopefully, eventually reversed. Interestingly, my thoughts always come back to “truth”.  Is it so hard to find and respect? In Roman Times, even though truthfulness was an ideal to aspire to, the goddess “Veritas”, the goddess of truth, was believed to live under a rock at the bottom of a well.  Sounds like truth was a bit hard to come by in early Rome.

Just recently I picked a book from a cafĂ© library in the one-horse town of Saco, Montana. It is called the “The Fifth Agreement”.  It is not about global warming, per se. The authors, Miguel and Jose Ruiz claim to be decedents of Toltec shamans. The Toltecs, if I understand the philosophy of their culture, believed that the pursuit of truth and the humble speaking of truth leads us to the path of happiness. Also, I might add, they recognized that each person sees and hears through different eyes and different ears. Thus, they believed, everyone should be given the respect of our attentive but skeptical mind.  Additionally, they stressed that one needs to be skeptical of personal “beliefs”. After all the psychology and sociology that I have digested in the last couple years, here was ancient wisdom mirroring modern “discoveries”.

The Romans and the Toltecs, to understand the natural world, did not have science and the scientific method as we do today.  Science, when studying the realm of nature, is our most sophisticated way to separate fact from fiction. It is not perfect, but it has proven itself to be the best path to understanding the world around us.

The book, “The Fifth Agreement”, alone did not distract me from writing about climate solutions. The next player was Rex Tillerson former Exxon CEO and recently fired Secretary of State. He gave a speech to the graduating cadets at the Virginia Military Institute.   I have little good to say about Mr. Tillerson.  When government and university scientists were first warning us about global warming, the public relation firms employed by the oil companies focused their efforts on creating doubt in the science. * I can tell you they were very successful.  I had to double down on my own research to assure myself that 97% of the climate scientists were not mistaken.  Misinformation was spread far and wide even though the oil company scientists advised their managers that our government and university scientists climate predictions were accurate.** Mr. Tillerson was CEO during much of this. As CEO of Exxon during this disinformation campaign, it is very likely he was a key figure promoting these lies, or at least tolerating them.

Listen, if you get the chance, to Mr. Tillerson’s stirring speech at VMI.  As a USAF cadet graduate of the class of ’73, it brought back thoughts of my classmates and the themes of duty, honor, country. Our honor code was, “I will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate anyone among us that does”.  Mr. Tillerson’s speech focusses on the desperate need for us, the US culture, to assimilate truth and integrity back into the fiber of our souls.

I applaud this call to principle.  Perhaps, though, he might evaluate what his role was in the world’s most nefarious deception. This is a deception still being waged upon us by Scott Pruitt at the EPA.  In fact, six US climate scientists, finding U.S. working conditions intolerable, have fled for foreign shores. This time their destination is France. The last time I studied the flight of our climate scientists, it was to Denmark. Climate change is real and our remaining truth seekers, that is scientists, deserve our support. They should not have to escape our borders to find respect and reasonable working conditions.

I agree with Mr. Tillerson, truth and honesty are desperately needed….and so is the purging of hypocrisy.

What can we do as citizens? We can only do our best. We cannot be expected to do more. If we want to leave a better world for our kids, we can expect of ourselves, nothing less.

John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

* Recommended book or DVD, “Merchants of Doubt”

** Exxon Coverup Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/14/exxons-climate-lie-change-global-warming

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