Global warming had been a 'hot topic' for years, but had been ignored by the Bush administration to the frustration of most members of the scientific community and to large segments of the general public. Mega-rich manufacturing companies didn't want to hear how they would have to minimize air pollution from their smoke-belching factories and invested millions of dollars in lobbying efforts to avoid it. Automobile manufacturers, in collusion with the oil industry, weren't interested in building cars that get get ninety miles per gallon, or that would last for twenty years or a million miles. Planned obsolesence was part of Detroit's marketing strategy that brainwashed people into believing they "needed" a new car every two or three years. Oil companies certainly weren't excited about cutting their petroleum revenues by 80% just so that car owners could save money and fewer vehicle emissions might help save the environment. For the past ten years, gas-guzzling SUVs were the "in" thing to buy. Mammoth, roomy trucks were one of the few sales bright spots in the big three American auto firms' usually dismal fiscal performances.
All over the world, governments continued to ignore scientists' warnings. Man-made accelerations of the natural global warming process had dire consequences. If modern civilization continued to pour 70 million tons of pollutants into the air every day, modern civilization would see itself become an endangered species by the end of the century.
Interim Vice-President John McCain had touched on it briefly in yesterday's impromptu television broadcast. Planet Earth was quickly becoming an ecological time bomb. The hurricane that had just ruined the eastern seaboard of the United States was a sign of things to come. More devastating hurricanes, massive flooding, and horrendous natural disasters could feasibly destroy the world's coast lines, killing millions - or maybe even billions - of people. Survivors would flee inland, creating overcrowded conditions in cities incapable of managing such an influx of new residents. Experts predicted with some degree of consistency that global warming was probably the #1 threat facing the planet today.
Still, every TV comedian had a barrage of jokes standing by whenever record cold temperatures infiltrated the country. "Well, so much for global warming," was a common response when temperatures turned frigid for a day or two. "Commentators" such as Rush Limbaugh pooh-poohed the idea of global warming having any ill effects on the Earth. "Experts" could be hired by industry lobbyists to "prove" the theory of global warming was an obtuse idea designed by scaremongers who were more interested in saving polar bears than promoting industrial expansion - and profit. Even Fox News "shouting head" Shawn Hannity had once stated that global warming was nothing more than a "liberal scare tactic" that was meaningless and groundless. Enivronmental alarmists were characterized as kooks, and the conservative-biased media used its own methods to convince their "ditto head" listeners and viewers that saving the environment was not necessary.
Still, in just the past two or three years, big business had begun to turn its thinking around. Not because of any concern over environmental issues, but because they viewed it as an opportunity to seize the moment and profit from those who believed in ecological causes. TV commercials portrayed giant agribusinesses as companies "who cared" about the land, and painted oil companies as protectors of the delicate ocean and tunra ecologies. Calming photos of dolphins peacefully swimming among inobtrusive oil-drilling platforms sanitized the reality of sea creatures being harmed by these dangerous oil rigs floating in the seas like giant steel versions of a kid's inflatable inner tube.
O.U.T.R.A.G.E. had killed off most oil company chief executives, and destroyed most oil company headquarters. Most wealthy automobile manufacturers had died, and their monolithic monuments to their own greatness had also been demolished. The mouthiest nay-sayers who opposed environmental do-gooders had all perished, as had their media home offices. Lobbyists and their prestigiously-named trade associations were gone.
Most of America's multi-millionaires and billionaires were dead. Only those who actually did good works with th
eir wealth had not been targeted by O.U.T.R.A.G.E. for annihilation. Among those mega-rich people still alive were Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. two of the world's most generous philanthropists. Now O.U.T.R.A.G.E. would approach these, and survivors like them, to financially support emergency programs to try and prevent, or at least reduce the impact of a coming global warming disaster. God knows the United States of America was ill-prepared to deal with any more carnage; it would take years to recover from catastrophic events of the past three months.