OCT 15, 2019
by Lee Camp
Only 100 companies will sign
humanity’s death sentence. That’s it. One hundred corporate boards filled with
sociopaths. But I’ll get back to that in a moment.
In recent weeks, climate activists in
New York City jammed up foot traffic on Wall Street with a die-in, covering
themselves in fake blood and lying on the ground. Other activists in
Washington, D.C., blocked intersections using a variety of tactics, gridlocking
traffic and pissing off a lot of people. It seems clear that when it comes to
our impending extinction, practically no one cares, unless it means they have
to sit in traffic for 10 extra minutes. Apparently there is nothing that upsets
Americans more than being stuck in their car, moving at a negative MPH,
completely unable to get to the jobs they fucking hate.
And that’s why those are the
types of protests that matter—the ones that interrupt the flow of capitalism,
not the colorful marches where we all show up for two hours while the
politicians we’re ostensibly trying to influence go play golf. I’m not saying
don’t get involved in the friendly marches—I’m just saying our rulers don’t
care that you did. It’s like when you dress up your baby in a costume: I’m not
saying you have to stop, but you’re only doing it for yourself. The ruling
elite, like your baby, doesn’t actually care.
But since I aim to please,
here’s a point for those of you who don’t give a shit about the climate crisis.
The corporations that are screwing up your life, tainting your water, polluting
your air, buying up your favorite coffee shop and turning it into a gas
station, sucking your tax dollars up through subsidies, and all the while
paying their employees a warm can of farts per hour—those corporations are the
same ones creating the climate catastrophe.
In fact, The
Guardian reported that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of
global greenhouse gas emissions. These include Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco,
Shell, Chinese and Russian coal, Chevron, BP, CNPC, ConocoPhillips, Gazprom,
Lukoil, Total, Petrobas and many others.
It gets even worse. The Carbon
Majors Report revealed that more than half of all industrial emissions
over the past 30 years were put out by just 25 corporate and state-owned
entities. Twenty-five companies are killing us, smothering us, stealing our
futures while choking us (and not the fun kind of consensual choking done in
the bedroom. This is the bad kind of choking that results in drought and
hurricanes and your dog stuck in a tree!).
Basically, a tiny number of
sociopaths make the decisions that are currently dooming us all, and as much as
I’d like to tell you otherwise, those people don’t even notice if we all march
outside in colorful hats. The marches are kinda like those “rate your
experience” things at airports and
restaurants, with giant color-coded buttons that feature four choices, ranging
from a smiley face all the way down to the dreaded frowny face. I hate to get
conspiratorial, but I’m 84% certain that those buttons aren’t even connected to
anything. The powers that be just know that you feel better if you think you
gave your opinion. Although I will say that the last time I “rated my
experience,” I actually did get a response from TSA at the airport. I was only
halfway through taking a dump on the frowny face when guys with guns showed up.
Point is, the only protests
that create change are those that interrupt the flow of business, because these
corporations will not give up easily. Too much profit rests in the balance for
them to stop their prolonged execution of the human race.
The Guardian article
continues: “Fossil fuel companies risked wasting more than two trillion dollars
over the coming decade by pursuing coal, oil and gas projects that could be
worthless in the face of international action on climate change and advances in
renewables – in turn posing substantial threats to investor returns.”
They have made a two trillion-dollar
gamble that we will all keep using fossil fuels even as society collapses. So
they don’t just have a dog in the race, they have a goddamn elephant riding on
top of a T. rex riding on top of Mike Pompeo. (One can argue that such an
animal would not fare well in a race, but it is undeniably a significant beast
to have in said contest.)
And I realize that for the
average American—the regular person scraping by, trying to get the kids to eat,
the dogs to poop and the grandpa to shut up for one second—climate change isn’t
his or her top concern. But the truth is, your daily troubles are connected to
the same corporations that are causing the largest existential threat we fleshy
apes have ever faced. The higher-ups at those organizations control our
governments, and therefore, our day-to-day lives.
As Tamara Pearson writes for
Common Dreams, “The
CEOs making these calculated decisions are hubristic-parasites with a
fallacy-fetish, who treat wealth as a game—declaring themselves winners when
they have more zeros than whole countries, while treading all over our magical
habitat in their race for wealth. … Spoon-fed elitists who are so white and
male and wealthy that they aren’t touched by the problems they create.”
While I love Pearson’s
analysis, she’s wrong about one thing. These parasites are not only white and
male. As President Obama pointed out last year in
a speech, “American energy production, you wouldn’t always know it, but it
went up every year I was president. … And you know that … suddenly America’s
like the biggest oil producer … that was me, people.”
Our former president is
actually proud of the fact that he helped put the nail in our coffin. When the
ruling elite don’t think you’re paying attention, they brag about their
crimes—the same way you or I might sit around privately and say, “Man, you
wouldn’t believe how much weed I smoked last night.” Our powers that be sit
around boasting, “Man, you wouldn’t believe how many regulations I gutted last
night.”
The 100 corporations actively
suffocating us in a blanket of global warming emissions are the same ones that
run our government. They have wrapped their tentacles around our politicians,
the regulatory agencies and the criminal justice system. It’s now one big,
incestuous, money-obsessed pile of X-rated nastiness—and you and I are not part
of it. We are the cannon fodder, the collateral damage, the chum. Until we stop
these corporations, the expiration date of the human race is set in stone.
