For a long time I was a global warming cynic, but not in the usual way. Oh, sure, we were heating up the planet with our CO2 spewings. But from my perch in the Chicago area I said, "So what's wrong with that? We could use a bit of a warm-up. Warmth is life, cold is death, right?" While it was true that sea levels would rise, and various human and non-human ecosystems would suffer, with great disruptions in agriculture and many extinctions, it seemed to me that on balance, after the readjustments (by other people than me, and also other species than my own) things would be better. Siberia and Canada would offer vast new areas for farming, and more species would flourish in the new warmth than in the old not-so-warmth. After all, life was doing great things in the distant past when it was really warm.
What they were calling bad was actually good. But it was not that which made me cynical; I could see their side of things, after all: good or bad is largely a matter of opinion, and it does matter where you're standing (in Bangladesh, the Sahel), and "in the long run we're all dead" by the time those readjustments have come into play. And so forth. No, what really got me was this smarmy air-headed attitude, totally dominating the discussion, that we broke it, so we can―and should!― fix it. Thus...
We're really really sorry for having binged so long on fossil sunlight, and will never ever do it again. And, we're agreed: for the desert nomads, the sub-tropical farmers, the polar bears, the coral reef communities, the beach houses in Malibu, we have to make amends, make it better, keep the old world going in the old way...
Can do!
Crank out the cap-and-trade certs, crank up the windmills, go to Kyoto, use that bully pulpit to keep everyone on message. Keep the Africans away from their coal reserves; shame the Indians and Chinese into clean industry; put our own CO2 where the sun don't shine. And give loads and loads of dough to those that look as worried as we are about the issue...
Sounds great, doesn't it? It's a plan: multi-fronted, energetic, straightforward, technologically intensive, and environmentally on the side of the angels. Alas, it hasn't the chance of a snowball in the Jurassic.
I can hear you thinking, at this point, that I've chosen to call myself "cynic" when actually "weak-kneed defeatist" might be closer to the mark. But I can be both! Hear me out.
Whoops, look at the time! Lest I try your patience and my own powers of concentration, I'm going to call it an entry. But very soon I will re-visit this issue: after all, Global Warming and what we should do about it costs most of us anxiety, if nothing else. And maybe, in my small way, I'll be able to free up your mind, so you can spend your worry currency on something else...
might be time to revisit this entry as you've promised...i've been called upon to play the part of the cynic in a global warming debate we're having in oceans & atmospheres lab and could use some good old-fashioned talking points. (unfortunately, my assigned position pretty much requires that i reject global warming entirely, not even plead that it might not be a total disaster.)
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