Quote:
Originally Posted by innerSpaceman
Are you going to man up ... or stay stubborn?  |
Well, that's a silly question.
I man up when I've made changes in my school of thought. For example, this place has changed my attitude about two specific things - one, marijuana (if you want to do it in the privacy of your home I can see no reason to disallow it and it is certainly less harmful to the body than alcohol....I'm somewhat less inclined to the same point of view with other drugs), and the other is gay marriage (rather than supporting the issue of gay marriage, though, I'm now more of a the-government-shouldn't-be-involved-in-marriage-at-all kind of guy).
I'm still not convinced. There are solar scientists who point to cycles of the sun. There is that one good sized Pinatubo like volcanic eruption pump more green house type gasses into the atmosphere at one time than man ever has. There are cries of the apocalypse in everything from SARS to global cooling back to global warming and throw in an ebola. Science changes it's mind so frequently about what is good and bad it is very tough to take claims seriously when what I see as common sense arguments (and perhaps I need to do more research into these things, as Alex has pointed out) are so much simpler. There's the whole issue of more severe periods of warming and cooling (regardless of what the CO2 level were based on arctic ice) throughout the history of the earth which could not have possibly been caused by man. And there's the whole "Animal Farm" mentality. The pigs certainlt could jusitfy their higher lifestyles, and I see this whole environmetal warming overkill as moving us toward just that. Only the important people can do certain things, because, well, they're important, damn it!
So many of the doom sayers don't seem to wish to change their lifestyle. Al Gore riding in his private jets. Edwards living in his 50K sq ft mansion. Hollywood types promoting doom and gloow (such as DeCaprio) who say "my schedule doesn't allow me to always use the most energy efficient form of transportation" (or something to that effect) when questioned as to why he's flying on private charter jets to his film locations. Well perhaps my schedule doesn't allow me to frickin' stop driving my damn car!
I do not begrudge them what they do. But don't tell me I can't. Don't tell me you're more important than me and what you're doing is more important so you have the right to burn more fuel in one private jet flight than I will during the entire life of my car (meant for dramatic effect, not as a statement that I have done the research and have proven that the type of jet Gore flies on will, in fact, burn more fuel than my car will for the entire time I own it).
So they say "well, we buy carbon offsets so we can continue to live this way". What they are saying is that since have the money they are allowed to do it, not uncommon and certainly acceptable, but I find this to be a bit different. Want to talk about inequality of opportunity and poverty? I can see a day when the cost of energy is so high because of anti-warming hysteria that only the wealthy can afford to consume electricity or fossil fuels, while the people on the poverty line lose even more of their standard of living and the middle class can't ever find a way to get ahead.
I don't know what it will take to convince me. The first step might just be those who are preaching from the mountain tops about the dangers of warming start showing me by example that they believe in their message enough to make sacrifices that they are expecting us to make. I'm not talking little things. I'm talking get rid of the damn jets. Get rid of your energy and natural resource consuming mansions. Don't protest the wind farms that are going to be built of the coast of Martha's Vineyard because it's going to destroy your pristine view. Show me how important it is. And the politicians can make the process of building nuclear power plants easier and faster (because that's really the answer for long term energy without pumping anything - relatively speaking - into the air).
Well....that was longer than I expected it to be.