Why are some people so adamant about not wearing face masks? Since when is the public's health a partisan issue? You might be surprised at the root cause as our leaders seem not to have made the obvious connection. Since the Supreme Court's decision allowing unlimited anonymous political contributions by corporations, energy companies and their billionaire owners such as the Koch brothers have spent billions in an effort to discredit science and convince many voters that only "the facts that you believe" matter.
CO2 levels in the atmosphere right now, well over 400 parts per million, are the highest they have been in millions of years. We are currently engaged in an unprecedented worldwide experiment that could lead to the end of life as we know it. But change is hard to see when it happens so slowly. Oil, coal and other fossil fuel companies have for decades spent billions of undisclosed dollars denying the change. Alaskans love their Permanent Fund dividend, and many of us think that oil revenues will pay for government for as long as we live here. So it is easier for us to support Big Oil's lies.
Unfortunately, sometimes actions have unintended consequences. Nearly all climate scientists agree that burning fossil fuels is the largest contributor to climate change. To convince us that human activities don't cause global warming, energy companies and the right-wing politicians that they bought and paid for had to convince us that science doesn't matter and that scientists are full of it. These corporations have spent billions of dollars over decades to convince us that widely accepted science is "fake news" and that "alternative facts" can be used to win their argument. And they have been unbelievably successful. Now many conservative voters and most Republican politicians believe the lie that science only matters when it produces a better iPhone. And if you don't believe scientists, why believe doctors? It's no wonder that many now believe that the "liberal elite" are just trying to manipulate us (to what end I cannot fathom).
Now is the time to get smart and start believing doctors and scientists as if our lives depended on it, because they do. We need to believe epidemiologists when they tell us that without a cure or a vaccine, face masks are the best tool we have to prevent the spread of this horrible pandemic. Please wear a face mask when in public — if not to protect yourself, then to protect those around you. If enough selfish people fail to cooperate, it will lead to more "hunker down," and nobody wants that! And let's overturn the Citizens United decision now.
John Farleigh
Anchorage
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