Is climate change killing democracy?

The oil industry has known they’re driving climate change for more than 50 years. At first they denied the truth. Then did as little as possible to sort it, while making us all believe we’re doing all that we can to stop the worst problems.

That’s worked pretty well for them so far, but as extreme weather events happen more often and we’re no longer able to insure our property against the effects, just lying about climate change isn’t going to work anymore.

For more than a century, the wealthy have tolerated democracy. They hate the times when the people choose more liberal governments, but they’ve done a good job of convincing the people that prioritizing the interests of big businesses is best for all of us. That’s allowed the wealthiest 10% of Americans to hoard 68.3% of all US wealth, leaving the poorest 50% of Americans with just 2.5% between them. In the EU and UK, the poorest 50% share just 4% and less than 6% of the wealth, so it’s not just a US problem.

But as more people realize that big businesses owned by the wealthy have caused the climate problem, more people are going to vote for governments that make the wealthy use the money they’ve taken from the rest of the people to pay to fix their problem.

It gets worse though, because by that point, it will be too late to prevent many of the problems and the costs that arise from climate change are predicted to be far greater than the costs of preventing it. So the wealthy will face the worst of both worlds in paying to try and stop further warming and paying to resolve the issues caused by them ignoring the truth.

The costs will be absolutely massive. But using their wealth to pay for politicians who will undermine and then end democracy will save them from paying for the damage they’ve caused. Autocratic governments can simply ignore the effects of climate change and leave the poor to sort themselves out when the effects become impossible to deny anymore.

So, does climate change make autocractic governments inevitable?

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Click to copy post textThe oil industry has known they're driving climate change for more than 50 years. At first they denied the truth. Then did as little as possible to sort it, while making us all believe we're doing all that we can to stop the worst problems. That's worked pretty well for them so far, but as extreme weather events happen more often and we’re no longer able to insure our property against the effects, just lying about climate change isn't going to work anymore. For more than a century, the wealthy have tolerated democracy. They hate the times when the people choose more liberal governments, but they've done a good job of convincing the people that prioritizing the interests of big businesses is best for all of us. That's allowed the wealthiest 10% of Americans to hoard 68.3% of all US wealth, leaving the poorest 50% of Americans with just 2.5% between them. In the EU and UK, the poorest 50% share just 4% and less than 6% of the wealth, so it’s not just a US problem. But as more people realize that big businesses owned by the wealthy have caused the climate problem, more people are going to vote for governments that make the wealthy use the money they've taken from the rest of the people to pay to fix their problem. It gets worse though, because by that point, it will be too late to prevent many of the problems and the costs that arise from climate change are predicted to be far greater than the costs of preventing it. So the wealthy will face the worst of both worlds in paying to try and stop further warming and paying to resolve the issues caused by them ignoring the truth. The costs will be absolutely massive. But using their wealth to pay for politicians who will undermine and then end democracy will save them from paying for the damage they've caused. Autocratic governments can simply ignore the effects of climate change and leave the poor to sort themselves out when the effects become impossible to deny anymore. So, does climate change make autocractic governments inevitable?

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Is climate change killing democracy? © 2026 by Jethro H. Forclift is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0