Hysterical Emotions and Climate Change
By the title of this article some would think I am writing about the whacko liberal viewpoint of climate change; in fact I am coining a new term–the hysterical neo-con. It is the neo-cons that are hysterical about the issues; every issue gets the same chant: “the country is falling apart under the weight of the wacko liberals”. The topic of climate change gets the same response; global warming is a hoax perpetrated by liberals.
I am not a liberal, nor am I a hysterical neo-con; I rebuff both ends of the spectrum for the more difficult middle ground of reason. When it comes to the topic of climate change, I have to admit I was swayed by ideology. I figured Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” was what the neo-cons said–a bunch of liberal hog wash. Well, I finally sat through the film on HBO and found it to be a bland recitation of facts. Glaciers are receding, ice packs in the Artic and Antarctic are melting, and the temperature patterns in the oceans are changing. This is fact. In the past, ice dams have ruptured and massive ice sheets have slid off of continental land masses to wreak havoc. Every bit is historically accurate.
Al Gore’s movie did set the stage for the worst case sequence events, which may or may not happen, but for the most part all I saw were facts. Al, you did a good job; sorry for listening to the hysterical neo-cons. What is not so factually evident is the pesky question of whether we really know the cause of climate change and the even more difficult debate of “what do we do about it”?
I don’t agree that we can absolutely link climate change to human activity. The climate has changed many times in human history and people had nothing to do with it; are we the cause now? Who knows, but I don’t think the uncertainty of the cause is relevant; we need to look at the bigger picture. If climate change is natural the impact will be devastating. Billons of people and trillions upon trillions of dollars of infrastructure reside right near sea level. If climate change is natural we have a monumental problem ahead; if people have their fingers in climate change we are insane. I am not willing to take the risk that our activities have no impact on climate.
Here is why we should not ignore the possibility that people might play a role in climate change. The U.S represents about 20% of the global economy and we emit about 35% of the CO2. We have only about 4% of the global population. Now consider China with their population of 1.3 billion people, India with their population of over a billion people, factor in Viet Nam with 80 million, and other regions of the world that are rapidly growing their economy. When the rest of the world catches up to the present day GDP of the U.S economy, which they will, and if the rest of the world achieves the level of efficiency and environmental controls as the U.S, and they do not, we would see a 500% increase in CO2 emissions.
Changes on our atmosphere can last for 50 to over 200 years. If human CO2 emissions play a part in climate change we are crazy to stay the course. Changing course does not mean returning to the horse and buggy. I believe in technology. We should invest in alternative fuel research, we should invest in carbon sequestering technology, we should invest in greater efficiency in all of our products, and we should invest in forests that remove carbon from the atmosphere.
I do not believe that we can tax our way to reduced carbon emissions. People and industry will definitely move in a direction to avoid a carbon tax, but we won’t necessarily move toward something good. To move us all in a direct that is good, offer tax advantages and monetary awards for technological breakthroughs. Offer a reward and we will get results.
Copyright: American-Ideal.com 2007