This is the fifth and final entry in Heretical Ideas’ Conspiracy Week, in which our authors attempt to make up the most outlandish conspiracy theories they can think of. You can read the first entry here. The second entry is here. The third entry is here. The fourth entry is here. For background on conspiracies, read this article.

The Party of the Environment: Until Now

Until recently, the Republican Party was the Party of the Environment. Abraham Lincoln was a noted fan of the outdoors. Later, President Theodore Roosevelt famously said that “To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them.” And he backed up his words with deeds:

In 1902 he established the first national park at Crater Lake, Oregon and went on to create four more (Wind Cave National Park, SD; Sully’s Hill, ND; Platt National Park, OK; and Mesa Verde National Park, CO). During his tenure as president from 1901 to 1909 he created 51 wildlife refugees, passed the Antiquities Act (which led to the creation of 18 national monuments), and created the National Park Service.

President Nixon enacted the Clean Air act and started the Environmental Protection Agency. President George H.W. Bush reauthorized the Clean Air Act, adding provisions that allowed for a system of emissions trading that eliminated acid rain as an environmental problem.

Since George H.W. Bush, though, the Republican Party has mostly ignored the environmental agenda. Particularly, the Republican Party has been adamantly against any attempt at all to enact legislation aimed at preventing man-made Climate Change. Indeed, over the past 10 years, Republicans have increasingly come to believe that the threat of Climate Change is “exaggerated”, as indicated by this Gallup poll:

This is of particular concern because, as Matthew Yglesias points out, the use of the filibuster is increasing, meaning that Republicans hold power even as they are in the minority.

It may come as a surprise, though, that Republican opposition is so vehement. After all, there is virtually no debate among climate scientists that man-made climate change is real. Indeed, even the United States military is concerned that climate change will pose a threat to national security. So why is the Republican Party so opposed to trying to stop it?

Cui Bono?

Anytime people are acting in an odd or irrational manner, such as the Republican opposition to climate change legislation, it’s important to ask the question: Cui Bono? In Latin, that means, “Who benefits?” In the case of climate change, the answer is simple: Russia.

The biggest beneficiary [of global warming] is likely to be Russia itself, which encircles almost half the Arctic Ocean. Currently uninhabitable areas will become more hospitable; currently inaccessible energy resources will become more exploitable.

According to the United States Geological Service, about one-quarter of the world’s undiscovered energy reserves may be in the Arctic. [...]

Russia has claimed half the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole, as its territory. It submitted the claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but had it rejected. The convention decrees that who owns what is determined partly by the extent of a country’s continental shelf, and Russia did not have enough geological data to back up its claim. Russia is now mapping energetically, as are America, Canada, Denmark and Norway, which also border the Arctic Ocean.

Russia claims the Arctic. Credit: AFP/Getty

Access to more oil supplies is essential for Russia’s continued economic growth, especially in its quest to check European military unity. This is because Russia is a major supplier of oil to Europe, and its supplies will only grow in importance as the current major sources of oil continue to decline.

Clearly, in order to survive into the 21st Century and beyond, Russia needs the polar ice caps to melt so they can access their claim to the Arctic Ocean oil reserves. This may also be a way for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to increase his personal wealth, as it is rumored that he has extensive ties to Russian oil industry.

The Russian Connection to Right-Wing Think Tanks

There is no question that right-wing think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the Accuracy in Media are extremely influential in American politics. Nearly all of these think tanks have published in opposition to climate change legislation and even the very idea of climate change itself. Accordingly, it’s no surprise that ExxonMobil turns out to be a heavy financier of such think tanks. Nor is it much of a surprise that Getty Oil is also a financial supporter.

Or are they?

As it turns out, Russia’s biggest oil company, Lukoil, has been purchasing thousands of gas stations from American companies, sometimes even through large, convoluted maneuverings:

In May Gluzman put his theory to the test and bought 800 Mobil stations, some of the busiest in the country, that were split from the rest of Mobil’s retail network to satisfy the U.S. Federal Trade Commission when Exxon bought Mobil. In a series of transactions that charts the chaotic consolidation of the oil industry, the stations were sold to Tosco, which was bought by Phillips, which then merged with Conoco.

Here’s the thing: this type of long, convoluted transaction is often the hallmark of money laundering:

Layering involves sending the money through various financial transactions to change its form and make it difficult to follow. Layering may consist of several bank-to-bank transfers, wire transfers between different accounts in different names in different countries, making deposits and withdrawals to continually vary the amount of money in the accounts, changing the money’s currency, and purchasing high-value items (boats, houses, cars, diamonds) to change the form of the money. This is the most complex step in any laundering scheme, and it’s all about making the original dirty money as hard to trace as possible.

Now, it’s known that Lukoil does own these stations, so what were they trying to hide? Simple. It’s not ExxonMobil or Getty that’s funding right-wing think tanks. It’s Lukoil–they’ve just cleaned the money so that Russian influence isn’t obvious.

By funding right-wing think tanks and ensuring that they have dominance over the Republican Party, Lukoil (and by extension, Russia) can ensure that the Senate will remain deadlocked on crucial climate change legislation, thus preventing the United States from taking a leadership role in stopping climate change.

The Tragedy of Sarah Palin

Of course, it’s not enough just to buy think tanks. Russia is wise enough to know that it also needed prominent American politicians on their side. Enter Sarah Palin. Remember how during the campaign, she made a point of talking about how close Russia was to Alaska? And how silly it seemed? Well, I think that the evidence is clear that this wasn’t a silly remark: it was a warning. From Sarah Palin’s unconscious.

Last month, commentator Kevin Drum noted a strange change in Sarah Palin’s behavior:

One of the enduring mysteries of Sarah Palin is the Jekyll/Hyde transformation she underwent when John McCain chose her as his running mate. As near as I can tell, Sarah Palin v1.0 was a relatively pragmatic governor of Alaska. Sure, she was conservative, but for the most part the tribalism and rancor she sometimes displayed as mayor of Wasilla was absent. She worked across the aisle and got things done.

Then the 2008 campaign happened. Palin spent a couple of months on the national stage and developed such a fondness for her role as cultural attack dog — or perhaps redeveloped such a fondness for it — that she found herself either unable and unwilling to bother with actual governance once she got back to Juneau.

Why the change? Easy. This type of severe personality change can only be explained by brainwashing. Let’s not forget that Vladimir Putin used to be a KGB agent, and it’s well known that the KGB is capable of brainwashing even the toughest subjects.

Clearly, Sarah Palin has been brainwashed by Vladimir Putin. How else do you explain how the governor who raised taxes on oil companies now writes op-eds opposing climate change legislation? I hope she gets deprogrammed soon–it’s possible that she might even be a Russian sleeper agent as a consequence of Putin’s mind control.

Orly Taitz and the Birther Movement

With the recent confirmation of the election of Senator Al Franken and Arlen Specter’s party switch, the United States Senate now has 60 Democrats–enough to overcome a filibuster. Given the popularity of Barack Obama, it was clear that Russia needed a strategy to help undermine Obama’s moral authority and prevent him from pushing through Climate Change legislation.

Enter Orly Taitz. Orly Taitz is a Russian-born resident of California. She is clearly very accomplished–she’s a dentist, a lawyer, a real estate agent, and a black-belt in Tae Kwan Do. She is also one of the leaders of the “Birther” movement–the people who believe that Barack Obama is not a real American citizen. This movement has proven successful to the point that less than half of all Republicans believe that President Obama is a natural born citizen. This, of course, makes it easy for Republican politicians to resist climate change legislation.

Now, given that Taitz has so many accomplishments, how can she honestly believe such a ludicrous theory? My guess is that she probably doesn’t. No doubt she’s being forced against her will to help bolster resistance to Obama somehow. Maybe her passport or something else has been placed in jeopardy by the Russian government? Who knows? But Russia’s fingerprints are all over this insane movement.

Conclusion

As all of the above evidence demonstrates, Russia is clearly trying to manipulate the Untied States into allowing climate change to happen. This will enable Russia to easily access Arctic oil reserves, thus assuring Russia’s economic and political supremacy in Europe. In order to prevent this dastardly turn of events, it is essential that the Republican Party throw off Russia’s change and help lead America into a safer, more energy-efficient future.