Global Warming

posted by The Vidiot @ 9:32 AM Permalink

What gets me about the whole "global warming" debate is that it's, well, stupid.

Yes. The planet is warming up. There's no doubt about that. It's measured. It's real. But so is every other planet in the solar system, including Pluto. This planet has been warmer in the past, but did humans cause that if we weren't around then? No. So the UN's claim that it is man-made is, well, on the surface wrong. But that doesn't mean we, as humans, shouldn't do anything about it either.

So. Global warming as an EFFECT is real. Global warming, the propaganda that blames humans? Not so much. And therein lies the problem: As long as the debate hovers around "are humans responsible", a stupid discourse will prevail. I'm sure that man contributes to its acceleration or severity. Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" clearly shows that we have something to do with it, but the warming is going to happen no matter what we do. Now, it's just a matter of degree. (Pun accidental!)

So what should be the real point of a debate on global warming? The real discussion should revolve around how we can deal with its effects? How can we shift our food production infrastructure to accommodate the shift? What can we do to lessen it's severity, assuming we're making it worse (which we are)? If we focus on these things, we'll at least be attempting to address the issue on a practical level.

"Blame the humans" doesn't really help. Underlining the actual facts that clearly point to the warming and stressing that only humans have the ability, nay, responsibility, to react is the way to approach the problem.

Bottom line, we need to alter our lifestyles at a lot of levels; from the way we produce and use energy to the way we produce and distribute our food to the way our homes are designed, etc. Even with no contribution to global warming from humans, we'd have to do these things. Arguing global warming from an "it's inevitable" and "what can we do to keep ourselves and the rest of the planet from dying off" angle is the only way to address it. Othewise, you just give a whole lot of greedy and lazy people a big hole that they can bury their heads in.

Update: Similar minds.

Excerpt: Well, now we've got all but the fringiest wingnuts on board with the fact that climate change is happening, and the debate is down to what extent it's natural or human-caused. But does it really matter? Whether the problem is caused almost entirely by human activities (which I happen to believe) or whether it's the result of naturally-occurring solar/galactic cycles, the problem still exists. The question is not "whose fault is it" but rather, "what are we going to do about it?"