Climate-denying MAGA kooks believe juiced-up hurricanes are man-made. And they are half-right ... juiced-up hurricanes are essentially “man-made.” The precise term is "anthropogenic," but that's a big, elitist-sounding word ... so, "man-made" is fine.
The problem is that juiced-up hurricanes aren't made by a shadowy cabal of deep state Bond villains who are using a secret technology to pursue an obscure agenda of "global control" and "political punishment."
The banal reality is that juiced-up hurricanes have been made by a right-out-there-in-the-open cabal of oil corporations, petrostates and politicians who subsidize and protect an ubiquitous resource that fuels their blatant agenda of maximizing profits and hoarding wealth.
The irony is, of course, that if MAGA kooks just look at the fairly simple and straightforward science of global warming ... which dates as far back as not just the 1960s, but all the way back to the 1860s ... they can have their conspiracy cake and eat it, too!
That's because Big Oil's decades-long conspiracy to hide and/or obfuscate what their own scientists knew about the outcome of climate pollution is not only nefarious, but it is also provable using their own documents! It’s a conspiracy that comes complete with the smoking gun proof every conspiracy theorist dreams of. The motive is clear, too ... it's good ol’ fashioned greed! If they just follow the money (or, as the case may be, the petrodollars) they won't have to perform mental gymnastics or concoct labyrinthine fables to make sense of seemingly inexplicable catastrophes.
And if they really want “go down the rabbit hole,” they can dig into the rich, well-documented history of oil's impact since the end of World War II. If they do, they might better understand the “stupid wars” and the terrorism and the power-politics that they've been trying to explain with convoluted conspiratorial fables.
So, why are they blind to the open conspiracy right in front of their faces?
Perhaps it's because we are all actively participating in this conspiracy. We buy it. We burn it. We consume it a thousand different ways. That means the "man" in "man-made" isn't just some evil "they" or "them" we can safely scapegoat or demonize. No, the “man” in “man-made” means “mankind” and, in particular, the kind of man or woman living a petroleum-powered lifestyle in the developed world. But if climate change is a hoax? Or if juiced-up hurricanes are part of a diabolical plot? Well, we are all off the hook! Simply put, to deny the anthropogenic cause of juiced-up hurricanes is to deny responsibility ... and isn't that the whole point of climate denial in the first place?
Fanciful conspiracies or straight-up denial both have the same goal. Really, the details of the denial matter little to climate refugees living on a few dollars a day in an “under-developed” country.
Admittedly, plain-vanilla denialism is not nearly as titillating as Doug Emhoff using his Commie wife to turn-up the dial on Uncle Sam’s Weather-O-Matic Machine so he and “the Globalists” can simultaneously punish Red State voters and secure North Carolina’s lithium in advance of the looming, UN-enforced switchover to EVs.
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that their endless search for shadowy, governmental boogeymen ends up serving the all-too real conspiracy of Big Oil interests with a vested interest in the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world spreading tall-tales that shift the blame away from climate pollution. Political parties and think tanks and SuperPACs foster and fund anyone who drags red herrings along the petrodollar-paved trail that leads to their benefactors’ bank accounts.
Just look at the money they've poured into the pockets of climate-denying Republicans who represent, or, thanks to their denialism, misrepresent the climate-battered people of Florida. Or the money oil interests lavish on Evangelical politicians in oil-producing, climate-affected states of Texas and Louisiana. Or the money that goes into the retrograde thinkers at Heritage Foundation or the Heartland Institute. Or, most importantly of all, the support Big Oil and the Saudis have given to the world’s leading denier and kooky climate conspiracist—Donald J. Trump.
None of this is a “coincidence.”
And if it’s not a coincidence?
Maybe it’s a conspiracy after all?
And maybe the *real* conspiracy is to turn MAGA kooks into unwitting agents of their own demise? In fact, they may be the death of us all.