human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
VIEWED: 60750
PAGE 22 of 111
How Oil and Gas Fracking Billionaires Built a Climate Crisis–Denial Empire
It was the height of summer and Pastor Farris Wilks was warning that if we didn’t all stop sinning, God was going to scorch the Earth and melt the polar ice caps.
“We’re going to reap what we have sown, and what we have sown has not been good,” Wilks explained in his self-assured Texas drawl. “Think of all the murder that has happened in this country… all the babies that have been murdered… sexual perversion of all kinds.”
Wilks told his congregation in the small Texas town of Rising Star that the spike in global temperatures could be related to these sinful excesses. Maybe, he said, us “getting a little scorched here” was a message from God, and there was little if anything we could do about it.
“We didn’t create the Earth, so how could we ever save the Earth, or save all the animals even on the Earth, or save the polar caps?” Wilks said that day in July 2013, according to a recording obtained by the watchdog group Right Wing Watch. Ultimately, the fate of the planet was up to God alone: “If he wants the polar caps to remain in place, then he will leave them there.”
Wilks was no ordinary pastor. Along with his brother Dan Wilks, he was one of the U.S.’ newest billionaires. And their fortune came from an industry directly related to the planetary changes Wilks described in his sermon: fracking for oil and gas.
The previous year he and Dan had sold their fracking company Frac Tech for $3.5 billion and each pocketed $1.4 billion. They now intended to use their new fossil fuel fortune to shift the moral values of the entire country — and the right-wing influencers they enlisted for the cause went on to become some of the world’s biggest purveyors of climate disinformation.
The Wilkses didn’t just seed two of the most influential sites in right-wing media. They were also creating infrastructure capable of broadcasting messages denying or dismissing the climate emergency to millions of people. Outside experts now consider the Daily Wire and PragerU to be among the biggest and loudest sources of climate science misinformation on the planet.
They disagree. “Virtually all views that differ with the left are smeared and dismissed as ‘misinformation.’ We affirm that the Earth is warming, but we regard the view that global warming is ‘an existential threat’ to life on Earth as manipulative hysteria.”
The ability of Wilks-funded outlets to reach a mass audience with messages downplaying the seriousness of climate change is financially convenient for the brothers, who now back an oilfield services company called ProFrac that this month reported a strong quarter with more than $70 million in net income. Multiple attempts to reach the famously elusive Wilks for an interview through the company were unsuccessful.
Nearly 50 percent of Americans don’t believe humans cause climate change, a VICE News/Guardian poll found last fall. That’s due in part to the torrent of disinformation blasted at people by outlets like the Daily Wire, which “obfuscates the truth by overwhelming us with claims and questions designed in bad faith to confuse the debate so action is delayed,” the Center for Countering Digital Hate argues.
Meanwhile, companies linked to the Wilks brothers continue to cash in on the industry primarily responsible for causing the climate crisis.
Much More at https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3p33j/fracking-farris-dan-wilks-prage
ru-climate-crisis-denial-shapiro
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. - The Crowd, A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon
https://www.buboquote.com/en/quote/4766-le-bon-the-masses-have-never-t
hirsted-after-truth-they-turn-aside-from-evidence-that-is-not-to
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
"The masses" have, for the past 200 years, been led to believe in a new religion, which required them to tolerate the presence of oligarchs. The old religion (doing good on earth for reward in heaven) had to be eliminated first.
"Science" and Darwinism's "survival of the fittest" was one lever to eliminate religion. Misapplied as "social Darwinism" it did away with social restraint and justified individual greed. (I see this in a lot of your posts, SECOND.)
The other tennet was the "invisble hand". That promoted the idea that individual self-interested acquisition would lead to a more prosperous outcome for all. It somewhat contradicted "social Darwinism" bc it ingored the fact that some peope would be losers, but it bolstered the idea that all reward was based on the aquistion of goods and items.
These two ideas aren't believed explicitly by most people but they do lead to foundational aspects of consumerism and individualism
http s://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s
That left a number of people unfulfilled. Humans are mentally restless and easily bored. They used to tell eachother about the great hunt, orwhat was over that hill or beyond the horizon, or why there was thunder and lightning and what was beyond death. This brave new world, which concentrated on real world items, didn't fill this need, so the entertainent industry was born. And since humans are SOCIAL animals and acceptance is a real human need for most, social media was born.
HOWEVER, now that TPTB see that their ability to extract from one place (the colonies and new colony-like nations like the mideast, China, India and Africa) to enrich their home states (USA, Canada, and the EU) is coming to an end (bc of miitary and financial blowback and the inevitable development of previously underdeveloped nations) they now have to creates NEW religions, one that justifies lowering the living standards of "the people" in the name of a great cause or solving a great crisis..
That cause is sometimes "spreading freedom around the world" (sometimes known as R2P), or "climate change crisis" but is also called (by TPTB spox) "the great reset".
And people believe in these causes with a religious fervor bc they ARE new religions, one which requires sacrifice, bc another unfilfulled human need is to be part of a greater whole, since that counters the fear of death.
I notice, however, that TPTB aren't about to give up their steaks and private jets and yachts when they hobnob is places like Davos or go skiing in what little snow remains in the Alps.
Anyway, it's a shame that TPTB latch onto our better impulses and use actual problems to leverage themselves into positions of greater power bc people become cynical about everything and refuse to respond, even when it's a real problem and responding is in their favor. They (we) just need to figure out more legitimate responses.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:This doesn't work with everybody, but it does work far too often for it to be good. The so-called 'leader' tells a crowd: “We are fighting for freedom, peace, and prosperity!” Also, "Climate Change is a Hoax, and keep burning coal, oil and natural gas" says 'leader' who just so happens to profit by climate change denial.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
"The masses" have, for the past 200 years, been led to believe in a new religion, which required them to tolerate the presence of oligarchs. The old religion (doing good on earth for reward in heaven) had to be eliminayed first.
What is special about these 'leaders'? "By many they are considered as natural forces, as supernatural powers. They evoke grandiose and vague images in men's minds, but this very vagueness that wraps them in obscurity augments their mysterious power. They are the mysterious divinities hidden behind the tabernacle, which the devout only approach in fear and trembling." (Le Bon)
Gustave Le Bon: The Nature of Crowds
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The New Testament would have you cast into the fires of hell, SECOND.
For behold! You are like the Pharisee who beats his breast and proclaims "I pay my taxes! I'm not like that publican!"
Anyway, I know you didn't read to the end of my post bc I kept adding to it, bc my first post got lost in the ether so I saved the first part right quick and kept editing.
I'll sum it up for you:
Quote:
Anyway, it's a shame that TPTB latch onto our better impulses and use actual problems to leverage themselves into positions of greater power bc people become cynical about everything and refuse to respond, even when it's a real problem and responding is in their favor. They (we) just need to figure out more legitimate responses.
Climate change is real problem, but not using fertilizer for food crops is NOT the answer. Neither, BTW, is biodiesel (they burn down forests in Indonesia and Malaysia for palm oil, which is used to power diesel cars in the EU) or overfertilizing corn fields for fuel ethanol.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Anyway, you can bamboozle people and distract with crises ... bread and circuses (crises, entertainment, and propaganda are the circuses) ... as long as the food holds out.
But if you corral people into a formal economy and the formal economy collapses and there's no alternate economy for ppl to tap into, them all of the media froth evaporates.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Another week is gone and another gigaton of CO2 has been added to the atmosphere. If people don't stop dumping waste CO2 into the air, they won't have an economy.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Anyway, you can bamboozle people and distract with crises ... bread and circuses (crises, entertainment, and propaganda are the circuses) ... as long as the food holds out.
But if you corral people into a formal economy and the formal economy collapses and there's no alternate economy for ppl to tap into, them all of the media froth evaporates.
1) More studies needed on possibility of human extinction
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62378157
2) Start considering the worst-case ‘mass extinction’ scenarios of climate change, warn scientists in new paper
https://web.archive.org/web/20220802204448/https://fortune.com/2022/08
/02/worst-case-climate-scenarios-dangerously-underexplored/
3) Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2108146119
4) Global CO2 emissions rebounded to their highest level in history in 2021
https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rebounded-to-their-highe
st-level-in-history-in-2021
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Another week is gone and another gigaton of CO2 has been added to the atmosphere. If people don't stop dumping waste CO2 into the air, they won't have an economy.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Anyway, you can bamboozle people and distract with crises ... bread and circuses (crises, entertainment, and propaganda are the circuses) ... as long as the food holds out.
But if you corral people into a formal economy and the formal economy collapses and there's no alternate economy for ppl to tap into, them all of the media froth evaporates.
1) More studies needed on possibility of human extinction
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62378157
2) Start considering the worst-case ‘mass extinction’ scenarios of climate change, warn scientists in new paper
https://web.archive.org/web/20220802204448/https://fortune.com/2022/08
/02/worst-case-climate-scenarios-dangerously-underexplored/
3) Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2108146119
4) Global CO2 emissions rebounded to their highest level in history in 2021
https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rebounded-to-their-highe
st-level-in-history-in-2021
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Shut up idiot.
The climate change debate is dead.
Just ask Greta Thunburg...
That is if you can find her. She's hiding in her gated community right now. Europeans are in for a high death toll winter because of you assholes and she was your face.
--------------------------------------------------
Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:While he’s not exactly known for embracing science, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert pondered the climate change conundrum during a hearing this week. Rather than reducing waste or cutting carbon emissions, the East Texas Republican proposed another, less conventional method: Why not just move the Earth altogether?
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Shut up idiot.
The climate change debate is dead.
Just ask Greta Thunburg...
That is if you can find her. She's hiding in her gated community right now. Europeans are in for a high death toll winter because of you assholes and she was your face.
In a clip from the hearing, Gohmert stated that a NASA director had told him the Earth's and moon’s orbits are slightly shifting. Then, the congressman asked whether a U.S. land agency could alter those orbits to fight climate change.
“Is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM [Bureau of Land Management] can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun?” Gohmert said, directing his question to an expert. “Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate.”
Well, yeah. Obviously.
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/louie-gohmert-wants-the-blm-forest
-service-to-alter-orbits-to-fight-climate-change-12032508
"Caricature - Louie Gohmert"
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Biden* Admin just set climate change measures back 50 years.
--------------------------------------------------
Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME