A Political Education

Global Warming Declared Real

... rest of world goes "Yes, we knew that."

A report requested by the US Government has concluded that global warming is real. I understand that there are political aspects surrounding this otherwise obvious conclusion, but they're all concerned with short term gain.

I think the concept I have most difficulty wrapping my head around in modern politics is that fact that nobody, anywhere, seems willing to make changes that will return benefits in more than about five years. The fact that a major report had to be commissioned to convince people of such a fact annoys me greatly. Anyone with some basic ability to remember from one year to the next, let alone keep records, can see that the climate is changing. A little examination of history and historical data will show that the change happens in line with human activity. And the likelihood that some of those naysayers are going - still on a political, short-term gain basis - to produce a few tame scientists who'll babble a bit about faulty data and unreliable conclusions and not actually do any studies themselves - annoys me even more.

There's a notion doing the rounds that a lot of the motivations of environmental "sceptics" are based in religious ideas - namely, that the planet belongs to any given current generation of humanity (or the sceptics' particular sub-sub-segment of it) to do what it wants with, and second, that the world will end soon anyway, so it doesn't matter. These two notion, above all others, makes me see red. Being objective in this area is a real strain.

posted by Drew Shiel @ 6/23/2006 04:06:00 p.m.