Charge of the Lite Brigade

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On February 17th, some 40,000 people showed up at an event in Washington DC in order to draw attention to the most pressing issue of our time: Climate Change. Another group of people also attended that rally. They represented the Climate Science Denialists, which in the US overlaps considerably with the Tea Party. They wore yellow jackets and called themselves “The Light Brigade.” This follows the tradition of the Tea Party, who in their early days used the nickname “Teabaggers” for themselves, a term which refers to a particular sexual act, or so I’m told. I was reminded of this because the original Light Brigade was a hapless military unit commanded by incompetent boobs who made major mistakes causing the unnecessary deaths of a large number of people carrying out a futile and senseless act.

In other words, the Light Brigade that showed up at the Forward On Climate Rally in Washington DC on February 17th, 2013 of which there were about 15 according to reports, resembles the Light Brigade, the unit of light calvary at Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War that charged to their deaths on October 15th, 1854, in a number of ways. However, the real victims of science denialsm is everybody, not just the soldiers who forgot to question, to reason.

So, in honor of Climate Science Denialism and the new Light Brigade, which I’ve decided to rename the Lite Brigade, I’ve adapted the famous poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. As follows:

The Charge of the Lite Brigade
by Greg, Lord Mockingyou

Half a brain, half a brain,
Half a brain onward,
All in the valley of Climate Change
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the facts!” he said:
Into the valley of Climate Change
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man inform’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Climate Change,
Rode the six hundred.

Carbon to right of them,
Carbon to left of them,
Carbon in front of them
Tornadoes and thunder;
Superstorm’d with surge befell,
Blindly awash in the the swell,
Into the rise of temps,
Into the mouth of Hell
Ocean acidification.

Flash’d all their untruths bare,
Flash’d as they denied in air,
Science and data there,
Charging and lying, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plugged in the battery-charger,
But the coal based grid was broke;
Hannity and Rush they
Reel’d from the IPCC report
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they got a new contract, but
Not the six hundred.

Carbon to right of them,
Carbon to left of them,
Carbon behind them
Hurricanes with thunder;
Superstorm’d with surge befell,
New Orleans went to Hell,
Tea did not come out so well
Lies through their jaws brought Death
Told science to go to Hell,
And left it all to them,
Storms for our grandchildren.

What were they thinking, crazed?
O the wild charges they made!
All the world wondered.
WTF are have they said?
Look at the Light Brigade,
Ignorant six hundred.

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5 thoughts on “Charge of the Lite Brigade

  1. “…that charged to their deaths on October 15th, 2013”

    Really? The charge of the light brigade will happen 9 months from now?

    LOL Sorry – I do that too; the habit is always to type in this year’s date, and it sometimes creeps into the wrong places.

  2. I attended that February event, the march from the Washington Monument to the White House. I was one of the 40,000, and I never saw the denialists, hidden somewhere in the massive crowd of anti-global warming, anti XL pipeline demonstrators. I can believe that they were there- the denialists probably never will accept reality, they will die of old age first.

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