I'm on a horse…

(Eco)logical

March 28th, 2007

It’s like a rash that won’t go away. Not that I lose any hours of sleep over a subject like global warming, but where news programs used to be chock-full of stories like fires and disasters and robberies and murders, it seems like everywhere I look in the media there’s another organization out there trying to scare up some money so we can put a stop to global warming. Thanks, Al.

Today, I give in. I am purchasing my Global Warming jersey. I’m hopping on the Global Warming bandwagon. I’m gonna start waving a flag and crusading around the world preaching that we’re all doomed. The evidence is mounting, and you’d have to be an idiot to not believe it.

Now that I’m a card-carrying member of the Global Warming League of Justice, let’s start discussing all the facts that we’ve learned in the last few months about all this hoo-ha. The numbers are typical – straight from your latest Powerpoint presentation: methane and CO2 levels have risen between 30-50% over the last 250 years. The IPC estimates that temperatures will rise another 5 degrees by 2100. Sea levels will change between 20-60 centimeters in the next 70 years. (I’m totally pulling these figures from memory, which as you know, might as well be from my ass. There is a point to this…)

Wow. This sounds like a death sentence to me. We better start acting on this, lest it becomes too late for us to do anything but to stock up on sunscreen. Trouble is, if you accept all these estimates and theories about global warming, seems like we’re already dead. There is not a thing that man can do to make a lick of difference.

Under the assumption that CO2 reduction is the answer to all our problems, Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek estimates that we’ll (The collective “we.” Not just the good ol’ USA) need to start cutting emissions by 60%.

Cut emissions by 60% on a global scale!?!? Why not ask for unicorns to reappear as well?

He reports that in order to slash carbon dioxide emissions by over half, the entire industrialized world would have to effectively halt production of just about everything. It would be like the leap backwards from assembly line to a single man with a screwdriver.

The Kyoto treaty calls for a 5% reduction in emissions over the next #*%@ years (Hell if I know). China and India are the second and third largest consumers of fossil fuels, but they are not included in the Kyoto accords. As a matter of fact, even if all the signatories of the Kyoto treaty were adhering to their targets (which they are not), China and India alone burn five times the total savings of the Kyoto accord. Even if the most aggressive international plan to combat greenhouse gases were adopted, China and India completely negates it.

This is clearly a case of you’re-damned-if-you-do-you’re-damned-if-you-don’t. But from the beginning, I’ve said that the truth of global warming probably lies somewhere in-between. In 100 studies, you’ll get numbers that vary by as much as 100%. Put in persective, if you make an educated guess about something and you’re 100% off, just pull it out of your ass next time.

Which is exactly the point.

The next big thing asking for your tax-payer dollars and life-style change is global warming. Am I opposed to caring about our environment and weaning ourselves off dirty fuels? Of course not! I am, however, opposed to scare-monger tactics trying to convince me that unless we pour billions of dollars into as-yet unresolved theories, we’ll see the end of the world. I also don’t believe that the coal and gas industry fear losing business and therefore fund skeptics. There are probably hundreds of reasons to shift away from fossil fuels in the next century, and we’ll be able to do it without legislation, financial incentives, or the blah-blah-blah of the media. Nobody had to ban horse drawn carriages to make way for the steam engine.

As before, my recommendation is to not worry about it. Let’s continue killing ourselves in less spectacular ways.

Entry Filed under: Opinion,Rants