My humble opinion on climate change
Inspired by Tim's post, I wrote this.
Humans have bumbled through most of history. Genocides, revolutions, plagues, assassinations, economic panics, and war upon war have haunted our progress. Some notable examples in modern history include the European treatment of natives, the Year of Revolutions (1848), Word War I, the Great Depression, the Holocaust and WWII, the Great Leap Forward, the Cold War, and Rwanda. As Voltaire said, "Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes."
As depressing as this (brief) catalogue is, I write it with a vein of cynical hope. As bad as the each situation was, humanity continued. We progressed, and in some cases we learned from our mistakes and sought a remedy. It took four genocides, but by Milosevic in the Balkans, we decided to intervene and stem the flow of blood. Some historians argued that we bumbled through that as well, but the earth turns on its axis nonetheless.
Indeed, the Earth has held throughout this "tableau of crimes and misfortunes" for thousands of years, even as we abuse the Earth itself. It throws natural disasters against us from time to time, but we have a remarkable ingenuity to combat these as well (except in areas like Haiti or the Indian Ocean where poverty prevents effective defense systems, of course).
But, as 99% of the world scientific community seems to hint, our conduct has finally taken its toll. We have made many responsible decisions, but we continue to counter these with a flagrant disregard for greenhouse gasses. The earth has ebbed and waned between hot and cold, but this is a different issue entirely. Greenhouse gases warm up planets; this is a proven fact. Humans continue to produce them. And our planet is warming, an alarming correlation.
We can debate the extent or implications of this damage, but anyone who doubts its existence doubts empirical reality. We have a bum economy now, but the Great Depression has historical precedent. We currently have troops deployed for war(s). Nothing new about that. Abortion, gay marriage, gun control, human rights--no matter what issue one names, it has haunted our footsteps for generations, sometimes eras. People debated abortion in the Victorian era, but no one even knew about climate change.
This worries me. Our Earth, which has sustained us for thousands of years, now faces an issues it has never faced before, which may or may not alter it drastically forever. I'm not saying it will, but it may. It's possible. Quite possible. Yet, our common view seems to waver between "we should probably do something at some point" to "it's not happening," fraught with doubt and deception in between. Moreover, we only have one Earth to sustain the human race forever. It dwarfs our insignificant generation.
Europe has already bounded ahead, but America seems mired in politics. Just as the Supreme Court named carbon emissions a threat to human livelihood, placing it beneath the blazon of EPA regulation, lawmakers rushed to counter the decision and limit the EPA. The climate change bill remains lost in debate, gaining addenda like polyps, some of which encourage off shore drilling as BP's rig vomits oil into the Gulf. Politics has never been moral or logical, but this seems absurd.
"If men were angels, they should have no need of government," said James Madison. If people weren't lazy and selfish, they should have no need of regulation. But we are. When the Clean Water Act lost the ability to regulate certain areas on a technicality a few months back, companies responded by dumping in formerly off-limit zones to curb expenses. Many companies act responsibly, but ask yourself, do I trust BP and companies like it to act environmentally friendly on their own? Probably not.
I am against government regulation, but until men turn into angels it's the best thing we have. I'm worried for the planet. I'm worried for future generations. If climate change does a quarter of predicted damage, we wouldn't be the generation that failed to act against a genocide or combat a recession, things we've suffered before. We would be the one that flooded entire nations into extinction, unleashed contagion in tropical regions, fueled hurricanes, encouraged famine, and ruptured the world economy. We would be forever termed the asshole generation, an accurate sobriquet.
We have no history to fall back on, no point in which we can safely say, "they didn't address climate change and it turned out OK, so we're good." But we have scientific data. We now need action.
Humans have bumbled through most of history. Genocides, revolutions, plagues, assassinations, economic panics, and war upon war have haunted our progress. Some notable examples in modern history include the European treatment of natives, the Year of Revolutions (1848), Word War I, the Great Depression, the Holocaust and WWII, the Great Leap Forward, the Cold War, and Rwanda. As Voltaire said, "Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes."
As depressing as this (brief) catalogue is, I write it with a vein of cynical hope. As bad as the each situation was, humanity continued. We progressed, and in some cases we learned from our mistakes and sought a remedy. It took four genocides, but by Milosevic in the Balkans, we decided to intervene and stem the flow of blood. Some historians argued that we bumbled through that as well, but the earth turns on its axis nonetheless.
Indeed, the Earth has held throughout this "tableau of crimes and misfortunes" for thousands of years, even as we abuse the Earth itself. It throws natural disasters against us from time to time, but we have a remarkable ingenuity to combat these as well (except in areas like Haiti or the Indian Ocean where poverty prevents effective defense systems, of course).
But, as 99% of the world scientific community seems to hint, our conduct has finally taken its toll. We have made many responsible decisions, but we continue to counter these with a flagrant disregard for greenhouse gasses. The earth has ebbed and waned between hot and cold, but this is a different issue entirely. Greenhouse gases warm up planets; this is a proven fact. Humans continue to produce them. And our planet is warming, an alarming correlation.
We can debate the extent or implications of this damage, but anyone who doubts its existence doubts empirical reality. We have a bum economy now, but the Great Depression has historical precedent. We currently have troops deployed for war(s). Nothing new about that. Abortion, gay marriage, gun control, human rights--no matter what issue one names, it has haunted our footsteps for generations, sometimes eras. People debated abortion in the Victorian era, but no one even knew about climate change.
This worries me. Our Earth, which has sustained us for thousands of years, now faces an issues it has never faced before, which may or may not alter it drastically forever. I'm not saying it will, but it may. It's possible. Quite possible. Yet, our common view seems to waver between "we should probably do something at some point" to "it's not happening," fraught with doubt and deception in between. Moreover, we only have one Earth to sustain the human race forever. It dwarfs our insignificant generation.
Europe has already bounded ahead, but America seems mired in politics. Just as the Supreme Court named carbon emissions a threat to human livelihood, placing it beneath the blazon of EPA regulation, lawmakers rushed to counter the decision and limit the EPA. The climate change bill remains lost in debate, gaining addenda like polyps, some of which encourage off shore drilling as BP's rig vomits oil into the Gulf. Politics has never been moral or logical, but this seems absurd.
"If men were angels, they should have no need of government," said James Madison. If people weren't lazy and selfish, they should have no need of regulation. But we are. When the Clean Water Act lost the ability to regulate certain areas on a technicality a few months back, companies responded by dumping in formerly off-limit zones to curb expenses. Many companies act responsibly, but ask yourself, do I trust BP and companies like it to act environmentally friendly on their own? Probably not.
I am against government regulation, but until men turn into angels it's the best thing we have. I'm worried for the planet. I'm worried for future generations. If climate change does a quarter of predicted damage, we wouldn't be the generation that failed to act against a genocide or combat a recession, things we've suffered before. We would be the one that flooded entire nations into extinction, unleashed contagion in tropical regions, fueled hurricanes, encouraged famine, and ruptured the world economy. We would be forever termed the asshole generation, an accurate sobriquet.
We have no history to fall back on, no point in which we can safely say, "they didn't address climate change and it turned out OK, so we're good." But we have scientific data. We now need action.