#4:Â Global. Warming. Debate.
The global warming debate has got to be one of the most inane, worthless debates around right now. First off, let me just say — yes, I believe the earth’s atmosphere is in a warming trend, and I believe that the human population is responsible, and I’ve read James M. Inhofe’s articles and yes, I believe he is full of that stuff I keep finding smeared on my youngest child’s bum. However, and this is a big however, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you were to actually “prove” that global warming wasn’t true…get ready for it…I still wouldn’t give what the cat left in the litter box about it, because global warming is a giant red herring.
Yes! I said it! It’s a big, fat, debate about something that is very hard to prove, because science has a hard time proving negatives, scientists tend to disagree about data and methods, and a lot of money is floating around on both sides, yaddy yaddy yaddah. So, in my opinion, it is really a debate about nothing. But, you gasp, the Kyoto Protocol! The global warming treaty! Gasp! Gasp! US sovereignty gasp!
Get over it. Most big debates hide what the problem really is, and let’s face it — the problem is about pollution, about sustainability and lifestyle and the animals and plants and insects we share the planet with, and guess what? They’re dying. Maybe it’s from global warming, or over-fishing, or throwing trash into the gutters that go to the streams that make it into the oceans and kill the wildlife there, but the fact is we are stewards of this planet — stewards! Not children, using up our toys and throwing the broken pieces away.
I happen to know that some really, really beautiful things — including people — get destroyed by our urge to build and make lots of money to buy the car that shipped on the boat that came from the factory where nasty chemicals leached into the stream that poisoned the fish that poisoned the lady whose baby came out with no limbs. That is the debate we aren’t having because you know what? Nobody likes to face those realities, not the politicians whose campaigns are financed by industry, not the people who rely on the jobs in those factories to feed their families, not the general public who buy the goods made by those factories. This is the real debate, and I’m waiting to hear people stop arguing about which scientist is smarter and start finding some solutions. I’m at the front of the bandwagon for that party.
What I do see is endless debate about ridiculous ideas such as the loss of US sovereignty if we sign global warming treaties. Is anyone aware that we are involved in a lot of treaties? That there is a special office in the State Department that deals with treaty affairs? Did George W. Bush sign over our sovereignty when he signed the treaty to limit Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001? (More information on treaties here).
The thing about global warming is that it may possibly be (easily and cheaply) reversible using geoengineering, but reversing global warming is simply treating the symptoms and not the cause. Reversing the trend could have unintended consequences, but it still wouldn’t address the many other ecological problems we’re having right now, such as mass extinctions, habitat loss for animals, and of course, pollution. I see a lot of environmental groups using global warming as a catch-all, but the problem with this over-simplification is that then you get a war between two groups trying to over-simplify complicated questions that not only affect the United States, but every living thing on this planet. I really hope my children get to see the wonders I have seen, and I hope future generations understand that the idea of stewardship is more than rhetoric about an issue, but a fundamental responsibility we all have in taking care of our world.
