Traveler’s climate protesters call attention to humanity’s ‘crucial moment’

By its own admission, Fox News, or at least some of its most popular programming, is not news at all. That is precisely what it said as its defense when it faced a lawsuit triggered by lies told by uber-popular, prime-time host Tucker Carlson, claiming this was not news, but entertainment.

Now it would seem, intentionally or not, Fox has moved beyond edgy entertainment to full-fledged comedy. Take for example its website’s headline about climate protesters disrupting the final hole of a recent golf tournament: “Protesters storm 18th green at Travelers Championship during crucial moment.” If you’re not laughing yet, allow me to explain the joke.

It centers around the words, “crucial moment.” You see, what was actually at stake for the tournament was which of two multimillionaire golfers would add another $3.6 million to his bank account and which would have to settle for a measly $2.16 million. Still don’t get the joke?

Contrast these stakes with the rapidly unfolding climate threats the protesters were attempting to call attention to — like the massive flooding northwest Iowans experienced last week — and the absurdity of Fox’s headline becomes grimly hysterical.

For many years, climate scientists have been warning us that our use of fossil fuels was rapidly destabilizing our planet’s climate. The certain impacts? Increasingly intense floods, droughts, deadly heat waves, hurricanes, tornadoes — like those Wisconsin just saw — rising sea levels, and the unfathomable human suffering and deaths, and trillions of dollars in financial losses that result. All of these predictions are coming true right before our eyes.

In 2018, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of 100 of the world’s premier climate scientists, warned that humanity must cut our fossil fuel use by 50% by 2030, if we are to avert irreversible and catastrophic climate consequences. Since that warning was first issued, the world has instead increased its output of heat-trapping CO2.

What’s in our way? First there are the giant oil companies and their big-bank investors who control our national energy policy by spending millions supporting candidates who will deny the urgent need to address the problem, and millions more lobbying lawmakers to make doubly sure their billion dollar profits are protected.

And, of course, it didn’t help to have a president for four years, considered by nearly half of Americans to be a demigod, who proclaimed that the climate crisis was a Chinese hoax, and who forbade federal employees from even mentioning the words “climate change.” Four critical years of potential climate progress down the drain.

Where does that leave us? With a little more than five years to meet the IPCC’s target and the very real possibility that the same climate change-denying president will be reelected.

So if Fox News is actually serious about using the words “crucial moment,” its headline should have read, “Traveler’s climate protesters call attention to humanity’s ‘crucial moment.’” There could be no more fitting use of the phrase. Let’s hope readers remember this truly “crucial moment” in November. It may be our last best chance to avert the unimaginable.

Jonas Magram is a business owner, writer, speaker, and musician as well as a father, grandfather, and great grandfather. He lives with his wife Sandy in Fairfield.