So, this just happened.

Moments ago my Google “news” feed spat out a doozie of an article called, The ‘climate Emergency’ no one is talking about.

Guess what the ‘climate emergency’ they are referring to is? Yep, WINTER!

It’s a bottom scraping “opinion piece” that tries to make the point that because humans can adapt to winter, adapting to global heating will also be a walk in the (very dry, possibly on fire) park. Some people will die, but most of us will keep keeping on.

The author of the piece implies we should just sit back and chill out with a gin and tonic because—putting aside the ambient apocalyptic smell in the air these days—

[the…] “global population is booming, despite declining fertility rates, because almost everyone is living longer than before. There is no reason to expect these trends to go into reverse.”

No reason?!

This flat out false assertion got me thinking that the author could not seriously be a neutral spectator vis à vis climate change. My immediate reaction was, Who is paying this guy? There has to be something shitty going on in the background if you are prepared to put such nonsense into the public space with your name attached to it.

Here was another clue from the piece, referencing Extinction Rebellion’s net zero emissions targets for 2025:

“Meanwhile, the policies espoused by the eco-activists would cause far more suffering than the climate change they fear.”

Translation: let’s stick with fossil fuels.

It didn’t take long to put a plausible scenario together. The author of the piece is science and technology director of the Academy of Ideas and a journalist at Spiked.

Google search. Took about a minute. Here’s the subtitle from a Guardian article by George Monbiot it turned up from December last year:

“That Spiked magazine’s US funding arm received $300,000 from the Charles Koch Foundation suggests a hidden agenda.”

Have a look at Monbiot’s article if you’re not intimitely familiar with the Koch (pronounced: Cock) brothers. And then take a good shower afterwards to feel cleaner.

So, yes, the (extremely rich) Koch family has funded Spiked magazine over at least a two year period. One of the Koch brothers is now dead, but their toxic sludge of slippery-slidey opinion-modification propaganda keeps on hitting us right in the goonies.

If you are up for more punishment, you can also try reading the aptly-named book, Kochland, which reveals that

“Charles Koch, along with his brother David, played an earlier and more central role in climate-change denial than was previously understood”.

That’s enough of this horror story for one day. But I’m still bothered that Google blindly displays this stuff to me in the total absence of context.

Then again, Google is still funding groups that push climate change denial.

Time methinks for a very long shower.