Thread by @msbellows

1/ I was contemplating climate change in qui bono terms -- "who profits?" -- and stumbled across a great 2007 article by @EasterbrookG that may help us understand why the forces of wealth and imperialism seem so committed to denying the undeniable. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

@EasterbrookG 2/Executive summary/spoiler: because climate change BENEFITS them.

@EasterbrookG 3/ Per Easterbrook, climate change likely will generally make Northern-country landowners richer:

"a primary impact of an artificially warmed world is to make land in Canada, Greenland, Russia, Scandinavia, and the United States more valuable..."

@EasterbrookG 4/ In particular, climate change will benefit Russia a LOT:

"Russia might be much better off in a warming world: Warming’s benefits to Russia could exceed those to all other nations combined."

@EasterbrookG 5/ Climate change will enrich holders of water rights. (Funny how corporations, and the Saudis, keep trying to corner those.)

And there will be wars, as populations migrate. Wars require weapons, and mercenaries like Erik Prince.

@EasterbrookG 6/ Climate change will boost white/Western world dominance: "the great age of northern power may lie ahead, if Earth’s very climate is on the verge of conferring boons to that part of the world."

@EasterbrookG 7/ Climate change will enrich oil companies eager to tap reserves currently buried beneath the icepack: "Private-property rights in the North Pole seas, should they come into existence, might generate a rush to rival the Sooners’ settlement of Oklahoma in the late 1800s."

@EasterbrookG 8/ So the "winners" of unrestrained climate change are (checks notes):
• Large U.S. landholders
• Russia
• Corporate water rights holders
• The defense industry + corporate mercenaries like DeVos/Prince
• White/European supremacists
• Oil companies

Hmmm.

@EasterbrookG 9/ Asking "qui bono?" helps our current geopolitical situation make a LOT more sense. No wonder the GOP -- the party representing every single one of the interest groups who will benefit from a warming Earth, including Russia -- are so opposed to the Green New Deal:

@EasterbrookG 10/ They're selling our entire ecosystem for profit. It's the same old model -- genocide in the service of resource extraction -- on an untoppable scale.

(Now excuse me while I chug all the bourbon. ALL of it.)

/rant

@EasterbrookG *cui* bono. D'oh.