Green Or Else
Let me give you a hypothetical.
Let's say 98 doctors tell you that your child is sick. Very sick, in fact. And these 98 doctors also tell you that there are some very specific medicines that you need to give your child right now, or your choice will be whether your child's health becomes grave, or catastrophic.
Now let's say there are two doctors who tell you that your child isn't sick at all, that what she's going through is just a phase. These doctors tell you there is really no need to change anything in your child's life, and that pretty soon she'll be just fine.
Now, I probably don't need to ask, but I'm going to: which group of doctors would you be inclined to believe?
Duh.
So, let's bring the hypothetical into the real world. It's not your child that's sick. It's your planet. And the days of anybody making a serious argument against the reality of global climate change is over. No serious scientist in the world denies that global warming - and the potentially disastrous consequences for all of us - is real, is bad, and is accelerating in large part because of human activity.
Michael Mandelbaum, a professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins Univerisity has said, "People do not change because you tell them there is a better option. They change only after they themselves realize that there is no other option." Whether you like it or not, it's time to jump off the denial train. Global climate change is no longer a left-leaning, tree-hugging, Birkenstocks-wearing conversation over free- trade coffee. It's a national security issue. It's going to affect our energy future, our foreign policy future, and most definitely our economic future.
If you're really interested in how climate change, the energy crisis, and bio-diversity loss are all interconnected (and if, like me, you don't have a PhD in anything), let me recommend Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Pulitzer-winning author Tom Friedman. He does a very decent job of outlining the issues, how we got to where we are, what we need to do about it, and explaining the science that backs it all up.
Or, for you more nerdish, geek-out science types, zip on over to the website for the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change. This is the actual science, and it's worth looking over.
I saw this t-shirt the other day, a plain white job with three little words on the front:
green or else.
Those are pretty much the options.
Let's say 98 doctors tell you that your child is sick. Very sick, in fact. And these 98 doctors also tell you that there are some very specific medicines that you need to give your child right now, or your choice will be whether your child's health becomes grave, or catastrophic.
Now let's say there are two doctors who tell you that your child isn't sick at all, that what she's going through is just a phase. These doctors tell you there is really no need to change anything in your child's life, and that pretty soon she'll be just fine.
Now, I probably don't need to ask, but I'm going to: which group of doctors would you be inclined to believe?
Duh.
So, let's bring the hypothetical into the real world. It's not your child that's sick. It's your planet. And the days of anybody making a serious argument against the reality of global climate change is over. No serious scientist in the world denies that global warming - and the potentially disastrous consequences for all of us - is real, is bad, and is accelerating in large part because of human activity.
Michael Mandelbaum, a professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins Univerisity has said, "People do not change because you tell them there is a better option. They change only after they themselves realize that there is no other option." Whether you like it or not, it's time to jump off the denial train. Global climate change is no longer a left-leaning, tree-hugging, Birkenstocks-wearing conversation over free- trade coffee. It's a national security issue. It's going to affect our energy future, our foreign policy future, and most definitely our economic future.
If you're really interested in how climate change, the energy crisis, and bio-diversity loss are all interconnected (and if, like me, you don't have a PhD in anything), let me recommend Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Pulitzer-winning author Tom Friedman. He does a very decent job of outlining the issues, how we got to where we are, what we need to do about it, and explaining the science that backs it all up.
Or, for you more nerdish, geek-out science types, zip on over to the website for the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change. This is the actual science, and it's worth looking over.
I saw this t-shirt the other day, a plain white job with three little words on the front:
green or else.
Those are pretty much the options.
posted by Larry B | 5:42 AM
4 Comments:
Ok, I'll bite. I'll also respectfully disagree in Christlike fashion. First the analogy suggests there are only 2 camps, those who agree and those who disagree on the existence of climate change. The third category I feel you do not take into account are those who DO believe climate change is real but is not due, in large part, to human activity. Al Gore did indeed say "the debate is over" when in fact there is much room for debate. Many scientists do disagree on the causes of climate change. One study cites a huge increase in global temperature right before the little ice age in 1400 AD. In fact, because some ice caps are beginning to recover and the weather has, at times over the past 2 or 3 years, been anything but warm or predictable, 'global warming' has been renamed to 'climate change'. This is just another small evidence that the answers are not all in and while Thomas Friedman represents one side of the debate he is one source. In a nutshell my rebut to the climate change frenzy is we are told by 'experts' quite frequently that the sky is falling (ie global cooling in the 70s, ozone damage in the 80s, y2k in the 90s) and the voices that debate these things are the 'else' you talk about on the t shirt. You have voices of concern, then the voices of dissent rise up and after that, hopefully, you have a reasonable answer. Respectfully.
Morris
McKinney, tx
Nice writing, btw! :)
Mo:
What I said was that climate change was "accelerating" in large part because of human activity - not that it was the sole source. And I have a lot of really smart, really apolitical scientists to back me up. In February 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that "it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet's surface."
Now, this is not a single source. The IPCC gathers data from over 2500 experts in climatology, all over the world. So I'd really like to know what report(s) you are citing when you tell me that "many scientists disagree" on the causes of climate change. And while it's true that "Climate Change" is the more preferred term to "Global Warming," I question how that is evidence that the "answers are not all in."
Are you really comparing the Y2K scare to the huge body of evidence of rapid climate change as another "sky is falling" scenario? Here are some of the projections in the IPCC report:
Probable temperature rise between 1.8C and 4C;
Possible temperature rise between 1.1C and 6.4C;
Sea level most likely to rise by 28-43cm;
Arctic summer sea ice disappears in second half of century;
Increase in heatwaves very likely;
Increase in tropical storm intensity likely;
Any one of these projections is a calamity all by itself. Taken together, they represent a potential catastrophe. And there are many in the scientific community who believe that these projections by the IPCC were too conservative.
Shoot me a link or two to those "voices of dissent" you mentioned. I want to read what they have to say. And go check out the IPCC website.
Later, Amigo.
"No serious scientist in the world denies that global warming - and the potentially disastrous consequences for all of us - is real, is bad, and is accelerating in large part because of human activity."
Really?
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